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THE DISTANT DRUM 


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THE DISTANT 
DRUM 

By DUDLEY STURROCK 


“Some for the Glories of this world; and some 
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come; 

Ah! Take the Cash and let the Credit go; 

Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum.” 

Omar Khayyam. 


NEW YORK — JOHN LANE COMPANY 
LONDON— JOHN LANE— THE BODLEY HEAD 
TORONTO— BELL & COCKBURN MCMXIII 


— 


— 



' ^ n 


Copyright, 1913, by 
JOHN LANE COMPANY 


TO M. 





THE DISTANT DRUM 


PART I 
CHAPTER I 

A N oasis of vivid colour and teeming life 
set in the dull flatness of the Long Island 
country. The humid atmosphere shimmering 
and dancing with intense heat. Monotonous 
stretches of rough grass, broken here and there 
by clumps of trees and grey roads, filled with 
line upon line of automobiles. Solid banks of 
r dust converging upon the staring newness of 
wooden grand-stands, dotted with the conspicu- 
ous colours of the English and American na- 
tional flags. And automobiles everywhere — 
surging, struggling to reach the stands and dis- 
charge their passengers. 

Meadowbrook on the day of the first Inter- 
national Polo match had drawn the pleasure- 
hungry smart set of America’s capitals to itself. 
1 


2 


The Distant Drum 


Half an hour before the start of the game, the 
prevailing impression, typical of American so- 
ciety gatherings, was that of a colossal family 
party. New York shook hands with Chicago, 
Boston chatted with Philadelphia. Among 
the restless throng little groups formed and dis- 
solved continually, talking gaily and irresponsi- 
bly in competition with the music of the band 
and the eternal hooting of automobiles, and 
slowly moving over the green turf shifted toward 
the enclosures. The whiteness of the unpainted 
stands began to be picked out here and there 
with irregular splashes of colour, and the seats 
rapidly filled. In a far corner of the ground, 
by the stables, little sharp-faced grooms were 
walking strings of ponies up and down. 

As the moments passed, the club enclosure 
became the centre of interest. Well-known 
clubmen stood about in groups and lounged 
against the railings eagerly discussing the com- 
ing game. A fashionable New York actor 
strolled about arm in arm with a cheery-looking, 
red-faced cotton broker. In the balcony of the 
club-house a famous English aviator flirted 
mechanically with a pretty girl from Philadel- 


The Distant Drum 


3 


phia. The latest French dancer, with the 
glamour of her royal lover’s attentions fresh 
upon her, drove up with a reputed French 
Baron and entered her box, causing a stir of in- 
terest in the immediate neighbourhood. 

The ringing of the bell for the first chukka 
served to bring the game of polo to a start with- 
out too abruptly interfering with the various 
other games of le monde ou Von s’amuse . One 
couple in the grand-stand, however, were evi- 
dently discussing some very serious matter, to 
judge from their earnest expressions and low, 
intense tones. The incongruity of choosing 
such a time and place for what seemed to be al- 
most a matter of life and death, attracted the 
wandering glance of a spectator who was care- 
lessly leaning against the gate between the en- 
closure and the boxes. 

“Say, Thorne, there’s a man who could open 
your eyes about things if he wanted to.” 

The speaker’s companion was an Englishman. 
The cut of his clothes and his lazy interest in 
the stream of arrivals made it palpable enough 
that he was a newcomer. As a matter of fact, 
Bernard Thorne had only sampled his first 


The Distant Drum 


4 

cocktails and clam broth that morning. Al- 
though in other respects just an ordinary-look- 
ing, big, bronzed young man of twenty-seven 
or thereabouts, his face was particularly no- 
ticeable by reason of the sheer virility of its 
lines. 

“My dear Ralph, if you persist in this process 
of eye-opening, I shan’t be able to go out with- 
out blinkers,” replied Thorne flippantly. 
“Where is this wonderful pal of yours?” 

Ralph Delamotte nodded towards the tiers of 
boxes. “You see that man three rows up in the 
near corner?” 

Thorne glanced up. He saw a big, coarse- 
looking man dressed in a Derby hat and a 
closely buttoned overcoat, the only one to be seen 
on that grilling afternoon. 

“That’s Johnny Flinn. He’s nominally a 
real-estate man; actually, what is more impor- 
tant, he’s a political boss.” 

“Is that what you call a senator?” 

“No, hardly. Senators are the official ma- 
chinery. Flinn’s one of the unseen heads of the 
factory that designs and turns out the machinery 
for the power-house of the State. Incidentally, 


The Distant Drum 5 

he often pulls it back for alterations and re- 
pairs. He’s a big man, is John Flinn.” 

“He looks it,” Thorne replied tersely. “If 
his machinery is as rusty as his clothes — ” 

“Pardon me.” A woman’s clear, decided 
voice behind them interrupted him. They 
turned abruptly, standing aside from the gate. 

A pair of cool, deep, grey eyes under a dar- 
ingly exquisite black hat caught and held 
Thorne’s quick glance — held his eyes for per- 
haps a fraction of a second longer than was 
necessary. 

“Good afternoon, Ralph.” 

She passed on as Delamotte raised his hat 
and held the gate open. Thorne stared rudely 
after her. He saw her, leading a daintily 
dressed little girl, move towards her box with 
a slow sinuous grace of movement, carrying her 
little head imperiously. A slender figure, 
dressed in perfect white, dignified but with a 
hint of voluptuousness in its outline. 

Quite the smartest woman he had ever seen, 
Thorne decided, and he rather prided himself 
upon his taste. 

“Why, Delamotte, who’s that?” 


6 


The Distant Drum 


“Oh, that’s Mrs. Sebastin,” replied Dela- 
motte. “Lovely woman, isn’t she?” glancing 
at him curiously. “Let’s go up and see Flinn,” 
he went on. “He seems to have finished his 
business.” He led the way to where Flinn and 
his friend were sitting. The introductions were 
made. 

“Well, Mr. Flinn, Mr. Thorne wants you lo 
tell him all about American politics.” 

Flinn grunted. “Don’t know the first darned 
thing about them. Not in my line. I’m a real- 
estate man,” he replied in an utterly expres- 
sionless voice, but his eye twinkled. 

There was no intentional rudeness in his man- 
ner. It was simply characteristic of the man. 
His whole appearance was expressionless and 
commonplace. The shabbiness of his clothes 
was accentuated by his one apparent vanity — a 
large pearl tie-pin. His heavy body was fat 
to the point of coarseness, and his face was 
flabby and insignificant — insignificant until one 
caught the expression in his remarkable eyes; 
little, restless, beady eyes that held the whole 
secret of his power. 

Finding him in an unusually sociable frame 


The Distant Drum 


7 


of mind, they remained chatting and watching 
the game. The third chukka was well ad- 
vanced, and there was keen excitement in the 
stands as the visiting team began to press hard 
for the first time, keeping the game well down 
in the American end. But in spite of Thorne’s 
interest in this temporary advantage of his own 
countrymen, he found his attention continually 
wandering in the direction of Mrs. Sebastin. 
He could only catch a glimpse of the large 
black hat, and of a perfectly gloved arm resting 
languidly on the edge of her box. During one 
interval, however, it seemed to him that he 
caught her looking rather pointedly in their di- 
rection. But the excitement was increasing 
with each chukka , as the scores remained very 
nearly level, and Thorne had very soon for- 
gotten that such a woman as Mrs. Sebastin 
existed. 

It was certainly the fastest game in the his- 
tory of polo, but although the English team 
made desperate efforts to bring off a win, in 
spite of their obvious disadvantage in the mat- 
ter of ponies, they had been beaten by a score 
of four and a half goals to three when the bell 


8 


The Distant Drum 


rang at the conclusion of the play. Then be- 
hind the stands the parked automobiles began 
their frantic chorus, as the engines here and there 
were started with a roar and throttled down 
into a steady throbbing, until the whole ground 
seemed to quiver with the impatience of twenty 
thousand horse power held under leash. As 
the crowd streamed out, the scene became one of 
hopeless confusion, and Thorne had become 
thoroughly resigned to a twenty-mile tramp 
back to New York before Delamotte found his 
car. They moved off into the procession that 
was struggling towards the main road. Reach- 
ing the Jericho turnpike, they were able to make 
a smarter pace. 

As they approached a cross-road, a big Re- 
nault limousine overtook them, and slowing 
down to take the corner ran level for a moment 
before turning off to the right. The few sec- 
onds that they were alongside gave Thorne 
ample time to recognise the woman who had 
had such a curious effect upon him at Meadow- 
brook. 

“Jove!” exclaimed Thorne. “Am I likely to 
meet that beautiful lady in New York?” 


The Distant Drum 


9 


“No,” said Delamotte shortly. “That is” — 
he went on by way of explanation — “you see, she 
really very seldom comes into town, so I’m 
told,”’ 


CHAPTER II 


A WEEK later Ralph Delamotte sat at 
- breakfast in his apartment at the Gar- 
denia, reading a letter propped up against the 
coffee-pot. The more he studied the bold, up- 
right, regular handwriting the more aggrieved 
he became. It read as follows: 

“My Dear Ralph 

“As I have to be in town to-morrow morning, 
don’t you think it would be nice if you were to 
give me some lunch at Delmonico’s? Say at i 
o’clock. With your usual cleverness you will 
immediately think that I want to inveigle you 
into some deep-laid plot. Well, you’re wrong 
this time. I haven’t yet made up my mind what 
I want you for. It may be to help me to buy a 
picture or even — more difficult still — to choose 
a hat! At any rate, I will just remind you to 
get a table next the window; you know my little 
fads! 

“Yours most sincerely, 

“Yvonne Sebastin ” 

10 


The Distant Drum 


1 1 


Now, Ralph Delamotte had sometimes to 
admit humorously to himself that he was a man 
to be pitied. In his principal capacity, that of 
a physician, his large private income enabled 
him to practise as much or as little as he might 
feel inclined, and in this respect he had nothing 
to complain of. But in his other capacity — the 
more arduous one, he was wont to complain — 
that of counsellor and confidant of many men 
and more women in a city where there is prob- 
ably more intrigue to the square mile of society 
than in any other on the globe, he often felt his 
position an irksome one. An entirely unwill- 
ing victim in most cases, he considered that he 
had been elected to this latter position under 
false pretences. He wished heartily that peo- 
ple would take their troubles to other quar- 
ters; but appearances had always been against 
him. Many foolish — and sometimes frail — 
women, taking stock of his strong, clean-shaven, 
rather ascetic-looking face and kindly, blue 
eyes, his well-modelled head with its crisp, 
closely-trimmed hair slightly grey at the tem- 
ples, had marked him down as a fitting victim 
for their occasional outbursts of conscience, 


12 


The Distant Drum 


and — more frequently — as a refuge when in 
need of more material help. 

In this unwelcome manner, he had become 
the storehouse of more secret history than prob- 
ably any other man in New York society. He 
knew himself to be, of course, merely a man 
blessed with an infinite capacity for enjoying 
life in his own way. He was, in fact, selfish, 
he persuaded himself; but his great grievance 
was that it was impossible for him to get his 
friends to believe it. And so, at times, it hap- 
pened that when they wanted advice or money 
— or both — he was the unlucky man to be sin- 
gled out. 

And this particular sunny morning was ap- 
parently one of those times. Delamotte was by 
no means deceived by this effusion of Yvonne 
Sebastin’s. What, he reflected, could Yvonne 
possibly want him for this time? As far as ad- 
vice was concerned, her usual method, accord- 
ing to his experience of her, which extended 
over some years, was the simple and eminently 
satisfactory one — to herself, at any rate — of 
first asking his opinion on a certain course of 
action, and then telling him it didn’t matter 


The Distant Drum 13 

what he said, as she had already firmly made 
up her mind about it. The essential difference, 
he remembered, between her and others of her 
sex whom he knew, was that when her mind 
was made up she stuck to her guns with consid- 
erable determination and desperate ingenuity 
until the particular venture was carried through 
to her own entire satisfaction — a satisfaction not 
always shared by others who might happen to 
be involved. As for money, Yvonne was very 
well provided for in that direction, so it 
couldn’t be that. 

After all, he asked himself, what did it mat- 
ter? He would enjoy the goods that the culi- 
nary gods of Delmonico’s might provide, and 
in any case some of these little escapades, to 
which she so earnestly devoted herself now and 
again, tickled his keen sense of humour as being 
such a contrast to the attitude of the grande 
dame which she normally affected. At this 
point in his meditations, Thorne was announced. 

He strode in, whistling softly. 

“Hullo, Bunny! Have some breakfast?” 

“No thanks, old boy.” Thorne settled him- 
self deliberately in a deep armchair and crossed 


The Distant Drum 


14 

his legs. “No, the old nine-o’clock porridge 
and bacon sees me through all right till lunch. 
But I’m in a devil of a mess this morning, 
Ralph.” 

Delamotte chuckled. “You haven’t wasted 
much time. Who is she?” 

Bunny Thorne smiled darkly at a Greuze on 
the wall. “Oh, you’ve seen her. She’s very 
fascinating, of course — to me, at any rate; it’s 
largely a matter of taste — She’s very fast, and 
looks it; wants a lot of attention, too. But 
she’s got lovely lines — lovely, Ralph.” 

“I don’t recognise the description. Wher- 
ever did you find her?” 

“Oh, in Paris, about a year ago,” Thorne re- 
plied airily. “Brought her over here with me.” 

Ralph looked amazed. 

“As a matter of fact I’ve been trying to get 
her through the customs all the morning,” 
Bunny explained. “Lord! I’ve been the best 
part of twenty-four hours over it,” he went on, 
his facetiousness giving way to indignation, “and 
I don’t seem to be any nearer with the darned 
business than when I started. Poor old Merce- 
des! She’s been standing in the shed for a week 


The Distant Drum ijj 

now, dying for a few pints of petrol. IVe been 
arguing since nine o’clock this morning with 
an imitation yatchsman about her.” 

“Oh, that’s the trouble. Well, I daresay I 
can put you right.” 

“By the way,” Thorne went on with apparent 
irrelevance, “do I look like a guy?” 

Ralph looked amusedly at the good-hu- 
moured face and careless figure in easy grey 
tweeds. “Oh, you’ve come up against that!” 
He laughed and explained the meaning of the 
word “guy” as used by harmless customs ap- 
praisers and other Americans addicted to slang. 
Thorne’s face took on a look of hopeless resig- 
nation. Then he swore softly. “At any rate, 
I’m going to get on their track again.” He rose 
briskly and reached for the cigar box. “I want 
the old car and I’m going to get it.” 

“Look here, Bunny.” Delamotte looked at 
his watch. “I know a useful shipping man 
who’ll get it through in no time. I’m booked 
for lunch at one o’clock, but we’ll go down to- 
gether this afternoon if that’ll suit you.” 

“Right. But I’d no idea I’d have to bother 
you so much when you promised me last year 


1 6 The Distant Drum 

that you’d see me through if I came over.” 

“Rubbish! I’ll call for you at the Blitz at 
three o’clock. What are you doing to-night? 
How about The Perfect Lady at the Times 
Square Theatre? You haven’t taken much no- 
tice of our pretty American girls so far since 
you’ve been over.” Ralph looked at him with a 
twinkle in his eye. “I bet they' 11 fix you all 
right.” 

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a lady’s man, 
Ralph,” he said lightly. “I must admit, 
though, I’ve never seen so many smart women 
as I have here. By the way, I saw that Mrs. Se- 
bastin dining with some people at the Blitz last 
night. I wish you’d tell me something about her.” 

“Well, there’s nothing much to tell. She’s 
a very charming, beautiful woman, as you can 
see. She divorced her husband a year ago — 
which is nothing unusual — and for the rest she 
just lives the ordinary life of a smart New York 
woman. But come along, let’s go to the club 
and have a cocktail. There’s just time before 
lunch.” 

Delamotte collected his hat and stick and 
they went out into Fifth Avenue. Thorne, like 


The Distant Drum 


17 


every other stranger to New York, had from the 
first been struck by the glamour of the wonder- 
ful highway, by its vista of splendid buildings, 
breaking off into the distant green of Central 
Park, by its testimony to the power of wealth 
— store and mansion towering side by side, 
giant monuments to the pioneer brains of a new 
country. At noon-time on this summer day 
the scene gave him the impression of tireless life 
and energy. The whole street was in the pos- 
session of an army of au-tomobiles, manoeuvring 
intricately up and down, now and again draw- 
ing up into a solid phalanx at the sharp com- 
mand of a traffic policeman’s whistle. Bunny 
was deeply impressed with it all as he strolled 
along. Suddenly the insistent, imperative 
clang of a fire-bell broke in upon the busy 
hum of the street. The statuesque figure of a 
mounted policeman became alert and business- 
like as he instantly cleared a narrow lane through 
the traffic. A large red touring car bearing the 
plate FIRE DEPARTMENT in front, came tearing 
through on its mad, swaying course, the driver 
huddled over the wheel as if he were steering a 
Grand Prix racing machine. 


18 The Distant Drum 

“That’s about the third I’ve seen to-day al- 
ready,” he observed. “New York strikes a 
stranger as being one vast conflagration.” 

They turned into the club and spent an idle 
half-hour drinking cocktails, until it was time 
for Delamotte to meet Yvonne Sebastin. 

He found her waiting for him in the hall of 
Delmonico’s, dressed with the smart simplicity 
that characterises the American woman in the 
morning. She went up to him eagerly. 

“Why, Ralph, this is charming of you. I’m 
starving. I motored up at nine o’clock this 
morning. You’ve no idea what an early bird I 
am these days.” 

“You seem all the better for it, Yvonne.” 
Delamotte was looking at her with a critical 
smile. “You were a bit pale when I saw you 
last at Meadowbrook. But come along.” He 
found his table and they took their seats. The 
famous room was nearly full, and throughout 
the meal Yvonne Sebastin was in her most ani- 
mated mood, chatting, laughing, at one moment 
mercilessly criticising the cut of a costume, in 
the next breath giving Delamotte some graphic 
little sketch of her life in the country. 


The Distant Drum 19 

“But why don’t you come down and see me, 
Ralph?” she asked at length. “I haven’t seen 
you for over a week.” 

“Well, my dear lady, you haven’t asked me. 
I should never dare to intrude without a sum- 
mons from you.” 

“Don’t be absurd! Surely you know me well 
enough not to require a formal invitation. 
You’re a bad man, Ralph.” 

“Besides,” continued Delamotte, “all this 
week I’ve been acting as guide, philosopher and 
friend to an Englishman that I met last year in 
London. There are so very many pitfalls in 
New York for a good-looking stranger, eh, 
Yvonne?” Delamotte laughed. 

“I suppose there are, Ralph,” she replied in- 
nocently, gazing out of the window. “Why — 
why — it’s — raining.” There was a slight pause. 
Suddenly she turned and looked Delamotte 
coolly and deliberately in the face. “Why not 
run down to-morrow and bring your English- 
man with you?” 

Delamotte snapped his cigarette case and his 
face grew suddenly stern. He gave her a long, 
searching glance, then dropping his eyes he lit 


20 


The Distant Drum 


his cigarette. She watched him intently. He 
carefully and methodically extinguished the 
match and dropped it in the tray. Then slowly 
raising his head, he smiled into her eyes. “I’m 
afraid that’s impossible, Yvonne. He’s leaving 
New York to-morrow.” 

As Delamotte spoke, a look of intense irrita- 
tion flashed across her face. The next instant 
she was speaking unconcernedly. 

“Now, I thought you were cleverer than that, 
Ralph. For a moment you nearly made me 
angry, though. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter.” 
She rose from the table. “Shall we go?” 

Without a word he escorted her outside. 

Pausing for a moment with one foot on the 
step of her car, she turned to him with a smile. 
“Anyhow, you’ 11 come and see me soon, won’t 
you? Au revoir!” 

“Au revoir, pretty lady. Run away back to 
the country and keep the roses in your cheeks,” 
Delamotte replied lightly, closing the door upon 
her. 

He stood and watched the big limousine till 
it disappeared round the corner, then turned 
and walked briskly towards the Blitz. 


CHAPTER III 


CtTJOSS” FLINN stumped laboriously up 
-U the dirty stone stairs of the Manhattan 
Magnet building, pushed his way through a 
door marked EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT and 
planted himself squarely behind the low rail- 
ing of an untidy room, littered with pa- 
pers and filled with desks at which shirt- 
sleeved reporters were clicking out copy on 
their typewriters. A city editor glanced up 
casually. Seeing Flinn he rose and came across 
to him with the nearest approach to excitement 
in his manner that a city editor is capable of 
showing. 

“Morning, Mr. Flinn. What’s doing?” 

“I want to see Mr. Davenport,” replied Flinn 
stolidly. 

The city editor stopped a boy who was scur- 
rying past. 

“Go and tell Mr. Davenport Mr. Flinn wants 
to see him. Quick, now!” Turning to the 


21 


22 


The Distant Drum 


Boss he went on, “If there’s anything on, Mr. 
Flinn, put me wise. We’re going to press 
soon.” 

“Nothin’ doin’, my lad. Nothin’ doin’.” 

The boy came running back. “Come this 
way, please.” 

Two or three reporters looked up at Flinn 
as he followed the boy across the room to Dav- 
enport’s office and went inside. They turned 
their heads anxiously to the city editor’s desk, 
but, getting a shake of the head from him, re- 
turned to their copy. 

The private office of the president presented 
a striking contrast to the untidy hustle of the 
rest of the building. Simply but comfortably 
furnished with a few leather armchairs, a solid- 
looking writing table with several neatly ar- 
ranged piles of correspondence, and a few 
sporting prints on the walls, it gave little indi- 
cation of the variety of interests of its single 
occupant. 

Davenport looked up from the table where he 
was reading a letter spread in front of him. 

“Hullo, John, glad to see you. Sit down. 
I’ll be ready in a minute.” 


The Distant Drum 


27 


Flinn sat down, stuck his cigar in the corner 
of his mouth, and waited. 

The particular letter Davenport was reading 
was not of great importance, but he required a 
little time to prepare himself for the battle of 
wits which he knew was inevitable, and at 
which he felt himself rather at a disadvantage. 
Davenport was not a particularly clever man. 
Whatever success he had obtained had rather 
been due to sheer hard work, combined with a 
large amount of ambition which was con- 
veniently untrammelled by moral scruples. 
He had become the owner of the Manhattan 
Magnet when it was in a comatose condition for 
want of any decided policy, and by instituting 
various campaigns of what he called social and 
political reform — but for which his enemies 
had the much shorter and more expressive term 
of blackmail — he had succeeded in painting the 
Magnet as yellow as the worst of its competi- 
tors. His present campaign was directed 
against Flinn and his party. In this he had 
been remarkably successful, and with conscien- 
tious thoroughness and the lavish employment 
of the unscrupulous methods of this section of 


24 


The Distant Drum 


the newspaper world, he had managed to bring 
home several crushing blows upon Flinn’s care- 
fully-laid schemes. At this particular time 
these attacks had reached the limit of open viru- 
lence, and it was therefore with a slight sinking 
of the heart that Davenport speculated on the 
reason for Flinn’s visit. 

He carefully marked the letter with a blue 
pencil, placed it with the others at his side, and 
drawing his chair back from the table turned 
to Flinn. 

“Well, Johnny, we don’t often see you around 
here these days,” he said, with a slight touch of 
nervousness. 

He was a slightly bald, smartly-dressed man 
of a pronounced down-town type. A dissipated- 
looking mouth, barely concealed by a grey mous- 
tache, and an unnaturally high colour gave him 
the appearance of being a heavy drinker. He 
looked at Flinn uncertainly. 

“No,” Flinn said shortly, “and I shouldn’t 
be here now, only your dirty rag has got me 
going this time, you damned grafter.” 

Davenport’s courage returned. From long 
experience of Flinn’s moods, this unusual dis- 


The Distant Drum 


25 


play of feeling indicated to him that the Boss 
felt himself to be in a weak position, and if his 
only weapon was to be bluster of this descrip- 
tion, there was nothing to fear.. 

“Grafter!” He laughed. “That’s good 
from Johnny Flinn! If you’re going to talk 
like that, I’ll have one of my boys in and make 
a column of it. It’ll make good stuff.” 

“Aw, cut it out,” said Flinn disgustedly. 
“See here, Davenport, when are you going to 
stop this knocking? Are you going to wait till 
I have to make you? I’m getting sick of this. 
Here’s Doherty coming to me this morning and 
turning it up after what you said yesterday 
about him and those cement contracts.” 

“My dear Flinn, you don’t understand the 
position.” Davenport was speaking seriously 
enough. “You ought to know that when I took 
over the Magnet I determined from the start 
that it must be run entirely independent of party 
considerations and business interests. I have 
endeavoured to expose glaring abuses of all 
kinds, irrespective of individuals. One after 
another of these has been shown up and now it’s 
your turn. If, in the course of following what 


26 


The Distant Drum 


I as a newspaper man conceive to be a public 
duty, your pet schemes get knocked, it’s up to 
you to change your policy. The truth, Flinn, 
is—” 

“Oh, nix on that stuff!” Flinn broke in impa- 
tiently. “What’s Villiers paying you?” 

“Have it your own way, Johnnie. I’ll talk 
to you in your own language, then. I’ll tell you 
right now he’s paying me a damned sight more 
than you could put up. Besides, for my own 
reasons in this case I’m not to be bought. You 
can take that as final. If you’ve come here to- 
day for that, you’ve wasted your time.” 

“Say, here, Mr. Davenport, you can’t get 
away with it like that. You know Johnny 
Flinn by this time. I’ve got something up 
against you that’s going to make you change 
your mind.” 

Davenport laughed amusedly. “Don’t rake 
up that old Brooklyn graft again. You know 
you can’t give me away without getting your- 
self in wrong. You ought to be too clever to 
think you can make me change my policy like 
that.” 

Flinn got slowly to his feet, watching Daven- 


The Distant Drum 27 

port closely. “Say, Davenport, you’re right. 
I am too clever for that. I’ve got something 
cornin’ for you, and it’ll be too late to change 
your policy. You’ll just have about time to 
change your clothes, if you’re lucky, and beat it 
out of the country.” 

“.What do you mean, Flinn?” Davenport’s 
manner betrayed slight nervousness. 

Flinn went on deliberately. “What about 
the New Era Mines?” 

Davenport shifted uneasily. He spoke with 
an obvious effort. “The New Era Mines? 
Why, what’s that got to do with me?” 

“I guess it’s got a lot to do with you, Mr. Dav- 
enport, from what I hear. Those mines are a 
plant, and you’re working it. I know it. Now 
what have you got to say?” 

Davenport looked ghastly white. His mask 
of indifference had been completely torn away 
by Flinn’s sudden onslaught. Making a su- 
preme effort to regain his control, he sprang to 
his feet. “You go right ahead and prove it 
first — if you can,” he cried. “Then we’ll talk 
business.” 

“I can prove it ail right. But say, my boy, 


28 


The Distant Drum 


you don’t quite understand the situation this 
time. I’ll talk to you in your language, you 
mutt. This is an abuse that I feel it my duty 
to my own interests to put down, and this is your 
last chance to do a deal before my conscience 
gets the better of me.” Flinn was unusually 
sarcastic for him. “Now, what’s your an- 
swer?” 

Davenport was still clinging to a faint hope 
that Flinn was bluffing. “Let’s have your 
proof first,” he replied. 

“Well, how about Ford of the Financial 
Clarion? I’ve got him. How about Witman, 
that you sent to Mexico to report, and called 
back again? I’ve got him.” Flinn was care- 
fully watching the effect of this on Daven- 
port. 

“Go on, any more?” 

“I think that’s about enough for a start,” said 
Flinn, keeping up his appearance of assurance, 
“and I’ve got a line on one or two more.” 

As he heard these names, Davenport rapidly 
regained his normal self-assertiveness. He 
breathed freely again, realising that Flinn had 
been raising him on a pair of twos all the time. 


The Distant Drum 


29 


Offering a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t 
thrown in, Davenport laughed quite genially. 

“Come again, Johnny, another day, when I’m 
not so busy, and bring a few more names with 
you. You know as well as I do those won’t 
help you.” Davenport reached for the tele- 
phone. “Well, Flinn, I’m afraid I must get 
on with it. Sorry to turn you out, but you will 
come in again, won’t you?” 

Flinn shook his head meaningly. “No, I 
shan’t be back. I’ve given you your chance 
to-day. One more name will be enough for 
me, and then it’s yours for the open country.” 

Davenport went with him to the door. With 
his hand on the knob he paused and turned to 
Flinn, with a mocking smile. “I say, Johnny, 
don’t let any of those boys of mine outside get 
hold of you. You’re in a very communicative 
mood to-day. They might get a story out of 
you. How would half a column headed 
‘John Flinn Denounces Graft’ suit you?” 

Flinn grunted. “That’s all right. There’ll 
be plenty of dope in a few days, only I’ve got 
a better place than this to send it to.” He 
walked out. 


30 


The Distant Drum 


Davenport closed the door after him. 
“Hell!” he muttered, and crossed the room un- 
steadily to a plain oak cupboard on the wall 
where he kept his brandy. 

Flinn strolled along pondering the situation. 
He felt ruffled and undecided. He knew that 
he was on a hot scent and he was not going to let 
the matter rest until he had formulated a fresh 
plan of campaign. The information he had 
managed to obtain from Witman and Ford, and 
also from his own man whom he had taken the 
trouble to send to Mexico, was good so far as it 
went, in that it proved beyond a shadow of a 
doubt that the various properties were worth- 
less and that the whole promotion was a plant 
That, however, was useless for Flinn’s purpose, 
unless he could directly prove Davenport’s con- 
nection with the scheme, and Davenport, up to 
now, had been exceedingly clever in covering 
up his trail. This alone had been holding 
Flinn up. His visit to Davenport that morn- 
ing, in the hope that a chance shot might reach 
its mark, had been his last resource. It was 
exceedingly irritating to him to think that it 
was only his ignorance of the identity of the 


The Distant Drum 31 

actual man behind the scenes in Mexico who 
was doing all Davenport’s dirty work that 
caused the present deadlock. Once he knew 
this man’s name, it would be a strange thing, he 
reflected, if he could not put sufficient pressure 
upon him, one way or another, to obtain the nec- 
essary evidence. He determined to go and see 
Witman at once, being not at all sure that he 
had exhausted this source of information. He 
turned his steps towards the Brooklyn Bridge 
subway entrance, boarded an up-town local 
train, and alighted at Thirty Fourth Street. 
Witman’s office was in Herald Square, and 
Flinn made his way carefully across the mid- 
day traffic of Fifth Avenue in that direction. 

It was outside Riker’s drug store that he met 
Yvonne Sebastin. 

Now, Yvonne’s moods — and they were many 
— were largely determined by her environment 
Her tall, slender, perfectly-proportioned figure, 
and delicate finely-chiselled features were best 
suited by the air of rather languorous dignity 
and repose that she usually wore. But there 
were occasions when she was roused into an ap- 
pearance of intense animation. Driving her 


32 


The Distant Drum 


smart little cream-coloured two-seater, taking 
an early morning gallop, or playing a game of 
golf — to all of which she was an enthusiastic, 
if somewhat erratic, devotee — produced an 
acute state of mental exaltation; but surest of all 
in bringing out this mood was a shopping ex- 
pedition. There was a certain keen delight to 
her in starting out with a firm determination not 
to spend more than fifty dollars, and invariably 
finishing up by finding that she had got rid of 
two or three times that amount. Judging from 
her manner that particular morning, she was 
evidently nearing the five hundred dollar stage, 
and her spirits were correspondingly high. 
The habitual expression of deep pathos in her 
eyes — her most striking feature — was almost' 
flooded out with sheer, effervescent joy of liv- 
ing. 

John Flinn had never been accused 'of wast- 
ing his time over women, but obeying some 
unreasoning impulse he stopped and spoke to 
her. It was an impulse utterly opposed to his 
usual taciturnity. Just a momentary whim, it 
was nevertheless destined to have disastrous 
consequences — a capricious gust of wind over 


The Distant Drum 


33 


summer waters snatching unsuspecting lives 
into a hidden maelstrom of wreckage. The 
Fates certainly lit on Thirty Fourth Street that 
morning, for a moment, in their eternal search 
for victims. 

Flinn greeted Yvonne almost genially. 
“Why, it’s Mr. Flinn, of all people!” she ex- 
claimed. “How are you?” She was mani- 
festly surprised and amused. “I don’t often see 
you up-town in the morning. You don’t mean 
to say you’re shopping? I’ve had a glorious 
time. Been to almost every shop in Fifth Ave- 
nue. Started out to buy a few things for my 
little niece, and found I wanted no end of 
things for myself. I’m a perfect fool with 
money.” She chatted on breathlessly, flitting 
butterfly-like from one topic to another, without 
pausing for replies, until Flinn was quite ap- 
palled at the embarrassing torrent of words he 
had brought on himself; and he was vainly try- 
ing to break away, when a turn in this one-sided 
conversation brought his wits into action again. 

“But you haven’t answered me, Mr. Flinn. 
Where have you been this morning?” she was 
saying. 


34 


The Distant Drum 


“Waal, I’ve just come from the Magnet of- 
fice,” he replied patiently. 

“Oh, really. Did you see Mr. Davenport? 
How is he? Very busy as usual, I suppose?” 

“Yes, very busy. He used to be rather a 
friend of yours, didn’t he, Mrs. Sebastin?” 

“Yes, we used to see quite a lot of one an- 
other,” Yvonne replied with a smile. “He was 
always running about after me.” 

“H’m! Did he ever talk to you about his 
business affairs?” 

“He chats about them sometimes when I see 
him — not very much, though. Why?” Yvonne 
was getting curious. 

“Did he ever mention the New Era Mines?” 

“Yes, I believe he said something about them. 
[Aren’t they the ones somewhere in Mexico? 
What are you driving at, Mr. Flinn. You’re 
making me quite excited,” she said frankly. 

Flinn was carefully watching the effect of his 
words. “Waal, he didn’t mention any names 
in connection with it, I suppose?” he said. 

“No, I don’t think so — no, I’m positive about 
that. But I shouldn’t remember them, any 


The Distant Drum 


35 

way.” A little frown puckered her forehead. 
This cross-questioning was puzzling her. 

Flinn paused a moment, with his eyes still on 
her, then, apparently satisfied with his scrutiny, 
he transferred his attention to Riker’s window. 
“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” he drawled. “I 
hope I haven’t bothered you with it, but I’ve 
got rather an interest in it myself. I mustn’t 
keep you any longer, Mrs. Sebastin. Glad to 
have seen you looking so well. Good-bye.” He 
raised his hat and continued his way to Herald 
Square, leaving Yvonne wondering a little at 
his questions. She was quite persuaded now 
that he had stopped her with a definite purpose, 
but, to her disappointment, the matter did not 
show any signs of proving interesting. After 
all, there was a matter of a new French model 
at Altman’s that positively must be attended to 
before lunch. 


CHAPTER IV 


T WO or three seedy, furtive-looking ticket 
speculators, busily at work in the glare of 
light outside the Times Square Theatre, were 
doing a good trade. “The Perfect Lady” had 
danced her way merrily through a record num- 
ber of performances and these embryo financiers 
had little difficulty in selling their stock. They 
sidled to and fro among the likely looking indi- 
viduals who stopped to read the announcements 
at the entrance, keeping a careful eye on their 
common enemy — the policeman. 

Two of them had ceased operations for a few 
moments to discuss some knotty point of eti- 
quette of their precarious profession. 

“Say, you big boob, if I lamp youse buttin’ in 
again on a guy what I’ve got cinched, I’ll knock 
yer block off, do yer git me?” 

“Aw, hell, I’ll git yer good and plenty. Why 
don’t you beat in back to T’oid Avenue and sell 
pea-nuts?” 


36 


The Distant Drum 


37 

This unfeeling reference to his enemy’s former 
humble calling was too much for the latter’s 
self-control, and, without further taxing his 
stock of repartee, he proceeded to carry out his 
threat. The combat, which was viewed with 
great approval by their fellow conspirators, who 
took the opportunity to corner some of their 
customers, brought them to the edge of the side- 
walk just as a taxi drove up. A misdirected 
blow landed on Bunny’s shirt-front as he stepped 
out. Politely enough he took a firm grip of 
each by his collar, lifted them from their feet 
and deposited them gently in the roadway. Del- 
amotte paid the taxi and turned with a laugh to 
Bunny. 

“Now, you’ve lost me two of my oldest friends. 
I often have to rely on them for tickets. Come 
on, don’t let us miss the opening.” 

They turned a deaf ear to the blandishments 
of the remainder of the speculators, who ap- 
proached with considerable caution, possibly 
fearing a similar fate, and made their way in- 
side to their box. The curtain had just gone up. 

A large and shapely bevy of dressmakers’ 
manequins were extracting every ounce of en- 


The Distant Drum 


38 

joyment to be had from a day at a brand new 
country farm. A tuneful orchestra was unfor- 
tunately drowning what was no doubt a per- 
fectly satisfactory explanation of their presence 
there, in company with a number of flashily 
dressed, uncomfortable-looking young men, ap- 
parently much below their station in life. After 
this explanation had been received by the audi- 
ence with the silent contempt which it deserved, 
a still more flashily dressed young man, who 
had come on by the next train to this country 
retreat, galloped on. He was very popular 
amongst a certain section of his lady compan- 
ions, who immediately arranged themselves 
round in an effective semi-circle. The remain- 
der left in disgust to change their dresses for 
the next effort. The aforesaid young man, after 
a few lines of pleasant but unconvincing ban- 
ter, and as a somewhat lame excuse for his tardy 
arrival, burst into song to the effect that he was 
“Phil from Philadelphia.” 

As the plot developed along these lines, Del- 
amotte’s restless, critical instinct, which had long 
ago exhausted the possibilities of New York mu- 
sical comedies and their particular type of audi- 


The Distant Drum 


39 

ence, focused itself on his friend Bunny. He 
was lazily and without much enthusiasm taking 
stock of a pretty silk-stockinged milkmaid at 
the end of the row, who seemed to find him 
attractive. Delamotte was diverted to notice 
Thorne plainly show the amount of impression 
she had created on him by transferring his at- 
tention to his programme with a yawn. Vari- 
ous unexpected sidelights on Thorne’s character 
and tastes were always making him an inter- 
esting study to Delamotte. His first impression, 
a vivid one, when he was introduced to him at 
a meet of hounds on the Worcestershire estate 
of his father, was simply one of careless, self- 
confident strength, mental and physical, with- 
out a touch of self-consciousness. But this ap- 
pearance of rugged strength, he confessed to 
himself, was rather misleading. With all his per- 
spicacity, he was only just beginning to fathom 
certain unexpected inward and spiritual graces 
of which this masterful exterior was no indica- 
tion. Certain trifling episodes occurred to him, 
as he sat in the shadow of the box half listening 
to the dreamy notes of a tenor love melody. 
One recollection was of a noisy party at home 


40 


The Distant Drum 


in England, searching for Bunny one even- 
ing to make up a game of bridge, bursting 
upon him at last in the lonely formal drawing- 
room, to find him pensively strumming some 
little songs of Grieg to himself. How could 
he draw an analogy between that solitary 
dreamer and the man who fought his way smil- 
ingly through two weary years of the Boer war 
as a trooper in a tough colonial corps? Then 
again, he remembered his surprise at the reck- 
less pace and utter disregard of everybody, man, 
woman and child, when Bunny ran him down 
one day to Brooklands automobile track on his 
big racing Mercedes — a mad drive that only 
miraculously avoided disaster to all and sundry 
on the road by great good fortune and the skill 
of the driver. How could he reconcile that 
callous phase of his character with that of the 
same man who, while hurtling along at a hun- 
dred miles an hour on the track a few hours 
later, had made a wild hair-raising skid from 
the top of the banking almost down to the rail- 
ings, and although recovering control well in 
time to avoid plunging into a crowd of specta- 


The Distant Drum 41 

tors, had deliberately pulled up, throwing away 
the race in order to go back and apologise to 
some ladies for frightening them? 

But there was one phase of Bunny’s character 
that was completely veiled from Delamotte. 
Women, although they were almost invariably 
attracted by Bunny, seemed to play a quite un- 
important part in his affairs. He always made 
himself pleasant enough, and he was by no means 
without his adventures, but they seemed to leave 
no impression on him. In fact, he was so ret- 
icent on that point that Delamotte wondered 
sometimes whether Bunny had been badly stung 
at some period of his rather eventful existence. 
Whether this were the case or not, Delamotte 
decided if he ever did fall in love there would 
be no half measures about it. It would be a 
case of neck or nothing. This line of thought 
suggested certain possible developments which 
sent Delamotte’s musings into a rather deeper 
channel, until he was interrupted by the general 
stir occasioned by the fall of the curtain on the 
first act. 

“Why, hanged if that isn’t young Bywaters ; 


42 


The Distant Drum 


and he’s got Reid of the Second Horse Guards 
with him. I must introduce you to them. Come 
along.” 

Thorne’s friends were lost in the shuffle, but 
with unerring judgment he made towards the 
saloon across the street. 

“They’re funny boys, Ralph, and you’ll prob- 
ably think at first they ought to have been 
drowned when they were young. Have you 
ever met any London ‘nuts’?” 

Ralph nodded. “Yes, I’ve met ’em. Those 
meteors that blaze over the firmament of the 
West End for a short space with a coruscating 
tail of motor cars and chorus girls, eh?” 

“Yes, and generally vanish into obscurity leav- 
ing a trail of wrathful tailors and unpaid sup- 
per bills,” Bunny added. “But these two are 
rather more in the nature of fixed stars. As a 
matter of fact, they’re quite shrewd fellows, and 
they’ve got a very keen sense of humour. Some 
Englishmen have, you know, Delamotte!” He 
looked at his friend quizzically. 

They found the two others, as Bunny had an- 
ticipated, ordering whiskies and sodas. Their 
exquisite clothes might have been made from the 


The Distant Drum 


43 


same pattern. They both wore carnations in 
their buttonholes, and they were both trying 
very hard to hide what were really quite pleas- 
ing and intelligent expressions behind a mask 
of utter boredom. For the rest, the dark, clean- 
shaven face of the one, and the fair curly hair 
and slight moustache of the other, instead of 
differentiating them, rather served to accentu- 
ate the similarity of their almost effeminate bear- 
ing. 

As they caught sight of Thorne, they forgot 
their languid manner and came towards him 
cordially. 

“The devil!” exclaimed one. 

“It’s Bunny Thorne!” from the other. “Why, 
Bunny, what are you doing in New York?” 

“Nothing much. Just having a look round. 
What brings you so far away from Piccadilly?” 
asked Bunny, shaking hands. 

“I managed to screw a couple of months’ leave 
out of old Jenkins. He noticed I was over- 
worked,” replied Reid genially. 

“Well, you’ve chosen a good place for a rest 
cure,” Bunny chaffed him. “Let me introduce 
you to Mr. Ralph Delamotte. Ralph, these 


44 


The Distant Drum 


two gorgeous fellows answer to the names of 
Bywaters and Reid.” 

“Glad to meet you. Are you going back to 
see the rest of the show?” asked Delamotte. 

“Well, we must stop to the end,” said By- 
waters, he of the dark hair. “Reid here has 
got a pet girl that he used to know in London, 
who’s in the show, and he’s promised to meet her 
afterwards.” 

“Oh, I see. Well, why not bring her along 
to supper, and we’ll make a little party at Jules 
Cartin’s. They’ve got rather a good cabaret 
show there. That is, unless you’d rather be 
alone with her,” Delamotte said obligingly. 

Thorne broke in. “Oh, it doesn’t matter what 
he wants. Bring her along, Reid. Now, what 
are we going to drink?” 

“Same old thing, I suppose, Bunny. Whiskies 
and sodas. All right, thanks, we’ll come along 
after,” replied Reid. “We’re very glad to have 
someone to show us round. We’ve got plenty 
of introductions, but Bywaters never has his 
breakfast till four o’clock in the afternoon, so it 
doesn’t give one much chance to look him up.” 

“That’s all very well,” replied the indignant 


The Distant Drum 45 

Bywaters. “But on the one occasion when we 
did have invitations to dinner Reid drank six 
different kinds of cocktails in his bath while I 
was dressing, then he changed his mind and went 
back to bed.” 

Several more drinks had to be consumed be- 
fore the occasion, in the opinion of these two, 
had been adequately celebrated, and by the time 
they all found themselves in Delamotte’s box 
the last act was half over, the scene now, of 
course, being a restaurant. Reid pointed out 
his girl with a blase air of proprietorship, the 
effect of which, however, was somewhat dis- 
counted by the fact that at the moment she was 
displaying an unmistakable interest in a youth 
in the front row of the stalls. She may have 
thought from Reid’s empty stall that he had 
deserted her, and perhaps she was loath to lose 
her supper. However, the play kept bravely 
on, in spite of the interruptions of a comic 
waiter, and the nobly concealed disappointment 
of the guests at the absence of any signs of food. 
r As a fitting climax to the scene, the hero, who 
was described as an English Duke, arrived at 
the restaurant, quietly and becomingly attired 


46 The Distant Drum 

in the full-dress uniform of a colonel in a Ger- 
man Guards regiment. Reid pointed out this 
discrepancy with keen appreciation. 

“Let’s get out before the rush,” said Dela- 
motte. “Mr. Reid, will you follow us to Car- 
tin’s when your charmer is ready. If you give 
my name when you come in, they will show you 
the table.” 

Reid parted with them at the entrance and 
they walked slowly down Broadway towards 
Times Square. 

Incessantly the mammoth electric signs were 
blinking their glittering reminder of to-mor- 
row’s business at the night-world of pleasure. 
A polo-player blazed into life, swung a flashing 
arm, struck at the ball and was blotted out, to 
repeat the monotonous game a second later. 
Automobiles and taxicabs glided up to the 
theatres, lingered a moment, and darted away 
to stately hotel and gaudy lobster-palace. 
Through the crowd-invaded street clanged an 
impatient line of trolley-cars. The feverish 
half-hour of the eternal tragi-comedy of the 
white lights, when the players move on to the 


The Distant Drum 


47 


next setting, had begun. Ralph Delamotte led 
the way through the doors of Jules Cartin’s, to 
where an impassive waiter was with difficulty 
persuading numbers of pleading, expostulating, 
smartly dressed men and women that the supper 
room above was full. But at sight of Dela- 
motte he bowed him and his friends into the 
elevator and signalled to the attendant. They 
stepped out at the fourth floor into a little forest 
of hats and coats, which was curtained off from 
the supper room beyond, and took their places 
at the entrance to the crowded floor with the 
men and women who were waiting for the nod 
of the anxious-looking maitre d’hotel. The 
room was large and handsome, with mirrored 
walls reflecting hundreds of well-dressed visi- 
tors sitting in twos and threes at little white- 
topped tables. Here and there were a larger 
party of ten or a dozen. 

In a bare roped-ofif oblong of polished floor 
a Spanish dancer was swaying her body and 
clicking her castanets to the lively tune of a 
string orchestra. To the two Englishmen, the 
scene was a novel one. 


4 3 


The Distant Drum 


“Oh, for something like this in London,” 
groaned Bywaters. 

“Yes, it reminds one of the Rat Mort, doesn’t 
it? But there’s a different atmosphere about 
it,” observed Thorne. 

“Well, Bunny, they’ve only just started this 
idea and people aren’t quite used to it yet,” 
Delamotte explained. 

“But anyhow, you can’t get the real atmos- 
phere of the Latin Quarter anywhere outside 
Paris,” he replied. 

“Except perhaps San Francisco. But come 
along, I’ve managed to get a table next the 
ropes.” 

Their table gave them an excellent view of 
the whole room. Delamotte ordered cocktails. 

“I say, who’s the walking jeweller’s shop com- 
ing in?” Bywaters indicated a stout, elderly 
man, escorting a well-known vaudeville actress. 
He wore enormous pearl studs and sleeve but- 
tons. 

“Oh,” laughed Delamotte, “that’s a celebrated 
down-town broker. He’s a very kind-hearted 
chap with a great weakness for jewellery, and 
he’s commonly reported to wear black pearls on 


The Distant Drum 


49 


his pyjamas, but I won’t swear to that. There’s 
your friend, Bunny.” Delamotte rose, caught 
Reid wandering distractedly round with his erst- 
while milkmaid, who was looking quite charm- 
ing in her evening frock. She was introduced 
as Mamie Maxwell, and speedily made herself 
at home. 

“Say, I’m just tickled to death at meeting 
three Englishmen all in one evening,” she said 
vivaciously. “I met such a lot of nice boys when 
I was in England with The Maid of Manhat- 
tan last year, didn’t I, Bobby?” 

“Yes, and nearly killed them all off. Do you 
remember the night when we took your word for 
it that you could make cocktails? And you put 
some green Chartreuse into what you called a 
dry Martini — to give it a pretty colour?” 

“Yes, you didn’t look very good after it, but 
it was pretty, though, wasn’t it?” she said plain- 
tively. 

The orchestra was softly striking up the stim- 
ulating strains of “The Beautiful Doll,” and she 
glanced round. 

“Oh, there’s that lovely Frangois going to 
dance a turkey-trot!” she exclaimed excitedly. 


5 ° 


The Distant Drum 


A loud burst of applause greeted the great 
Francois. He entered in a self-conscious man- 
ner and a plum-coloured dress suit of extrava- 
gant cut, bowing his pretty companion in elab- 
orately. They began. 

Francois was an artist. Gazing into his part- 
ner’s eyes, he led her with his light magnetic 
touch hither and thither, now poised in the cen- 
tre, their bodies swaying slightly to the rhythm 
of the music, then darting away elusively, until 
he transformed the usual monotonous crab-like 
shuffle into a dance, graceful and fantastic — 
gripping the true spirit of Southern rag-time. 
He finished suddenly and unexpectedly with a 
careless, sweeping bow in the midst of a storm 
of enthusiasm. 

“My! Isn’t he great?” exclaimed Mamie 
breathlessly, her eyes sparkling. “Bobby, if you 
bring me here again some evening, I will get 
him to dance with me.” She looked at him au- 
daciously. “He will if I make love to him.” 

Bobby was drinking a glass of champagne 
which went down the wrong way and prevented 
him from expressing an adequate opinion of this. 

Mamie went on irrelevantly, “Say, Mr. 


The Distant Drum 51 

Delamotte, I expect you know lots of people in 
New York. Have you met Mrs. Sebastin?” 

“Yes, I know her. Why?” Delamotte looked 
rather surprised at the question. 

“Well, she was in front to-night. Isn’t it 
strange she — ” 

Bunny was looking up with interest. “Where 
was she?” he interrupted. 

“Why, in the box above you. Do you know, 
I haven’t seen her for years,” she resumed. “I 
thought she lived in California. Isn’t she a 
lovely woman? There used to be a boy who 
was very sweet on me, and he used to talk about 
her. He said — ” 

“Oh, she’s been in New York, on and off, for 
about a year now,” Delamotte explained lightly. 
“But, like all you charming women, she flits 
about a good deal. I suppose you’ll be off to 
London with the company soon. I hear they’re 
going to take The Perfect Lady over there.” 

Bywaters, who had been assiduously consum- 
ing cocktails and champagne alternately in the 
intervals of watching the dancing, and was con- 
sequently in an advanced stage of exhilaration, 
here announced his firm intention of dancing 


52 


The Distant Drum 


the turkey-trot, which provoked derisive com- 
ments from his friend Bobby. Mamie, how- 
ever, seeing that he had made up his mind to 
dance or die in the attempt, was diplomatic. She 
suggested going to another place where By- 
waters would not be quite so conspicuous. This 
idea luckily being approved of by this some- 
what ruffled wooer of Terpsichore, they left the 
restaurant in a body and proceeded on their 
adventurous way in Bywaters’ magnificent 
saloon-bodied car, which, in spite of the advice 
of his chauffeur, he insisted on driving himself. 
The ensuing heated argument with the police- 
man in Columbus Circle, however, necessitated 
a rearrangement of their plans. Bobby and 
Mamie escaped in a taxicab, and the other two 
kept Bywaters company during his brief but 
illuminating appearance at the night court, in 
the course of which he cordially invited the mag- 
istrate to breakfast and was fined ten dollars. 


CHAPTER V 


4 4 \ UNTIE ’VONNE ! Don’t stop there all 
the afternoon!” A little petulant voice 
floated up from the lawn. “You’ve done noth- 
ing but lie in that horrid old hammock, and 
I’m tired of playing all alone.” A delicate- 
looking little girl dressed in white clambered 
up the steps leading to the verandah and ran 
across to where Yvonne Sebastin was dozing in 
a hammock. She awoke with a little start. 

“Oh, Mabs, dear. Don’t worry me to-day. 
Auntie’s got a bad headache. Run in and get 
Ballard to play with you.” She turned her head 
away irritably from the child, who stood looking 
at her for a moment with a hurt expression, 
and then walked sulkily into the house. 

Yvonne looked very ill. The pallor of her 
face was heightened by large dark circles round 
her eyes. She lay inert gazing through the 
trees to where the quiet waters of Long Island 
Sound lazily lapped the rock-strewn edge of her 

53 


The Distant Drum 


54 

grounds. Set on a gentle wooded slope of the 
prettiest part of the North Shore, overlooking 
Manhassett Bay, her country home breathed a 
spirit of peace and solitude. The only link with 
the outside world was a long drive, wandering 
aimlessly down from the house until it lost itself 
in a belt of trees, several hundred yards off, 
which screened the road. The low, rambling 
house was built for comfort. The front porch 
gave immediately on to a large lounge where 
deep armchairs and divans standing here and 
there on the polished floor, with a few hand- 
some rugs scattered carelessly about, a grand 
piano standing open at an angle to the wall with 
a pile of music thrown on the top, all gave an 
impression of coolness and ease, characteristic 
of this summer retreat of Yvonne’s. The large 
French windows and verandah overlooked a 
wide grass slope stretching away to the bathing 
house and the beach. Away to the left, at the 
far boundary of the grounds, was a gravel ten- 
nis court, which made the only break in this 
expanse of scorched turf. A border of trees 
formed a lattice work of green against the blue 
waters of the Sound. 


The Distant Drum 


55 

Yvonne’s mind to-day, however, was at dis- 
cord with her tranquil surroundings. Since she 
had left Delamotte outside Delmonico’s a fort- 
night previously, her brain had been actively 
at work. Without knowing entirely why, she 
had not been exactly surprised at his attitude. 
His motives did not trouble her much. The 
main point was that she had not achieved her 
object, and this alone to Yvonne was sufficiently 
galling at the time. But to-day, she suddenly 
realised that the desire to meet this Englishman, 
which had originated as a mere whimsical fancy, 
had grown into an almost complete obsession. 
She tried with much painstaking, self-analysis 
to determine whether this was merely a direct 
result of being thwarted, or whether it could 
possibly be that she had fallen in love — she ad- 
mitted the expression to herself with consider- 
able misgiving — with a man whom she had 
rarely seen and never spoken to. This sudden 
interest in a man was quite strange to her; in 
fact, she rather prided herself upon her invul- 
nerability. As her musings reached this point, 
she abruptly came to the conclusion that some- 
thing about Thorne — she had found out his 


56 The Distant Drum 

name with the exercise of a little characteristic 
ingenuity — had appealed to her strongly from 
the moment when she had come face to face 
with him at Meadowbrook. That being so, she 
at once conceded that something must be done 
promptly, and that she must use all her strategy 
to get to know him without wasting any more 
valuable time. 

Now, Delamotte had definitely refused to 
help her. Who else, that she knew, could do 
so? She almost wished — and she smiled — that 
she were able to use the simple but effective 
methods of introduction practised by members 
of “the oldest profession on earth.” The only 
other person she had seen him with was Flinn. 
Johnny Flinn! She almost laughed aloud at 
the idea of asking him to waste his time over 
a matter like that, even if he remembered meet- 
ing Thorne, which was very doubtful. And 
yet she could not quite get Flinn out of her 
mind. Her thoughts began to run around in 
circles, vainly casting about for some means 
of getting the necessary introduction. But for 
some vague reason they kept returning to the 
old “Boss.” Suddenly the details of her meet- 


The Distant Drum 


57 


ing with him outside Riker’s came to her mind, 
and she pondered mechanically over his mys- 
terious questions. At length she realised that 
she was not coming to any satisfactory solution 
by thinking of Flinn, and she decided it was 
best to put the matter right out of her thoughts 
for the time being and go to her room and rest. 
If this terrible feeling of weakness would only 
leave her. Rousing herself with an effort, she 
walked slowly into the house and rang the bell 
for her maid. 

“Where is Miss Mabel, Ballard?” 

“She is with me, ma’am.” 

“Well, I’m going to lie down. Don’t dis- 
turb me for anyone. I shan’t want any dinner. 
Has anyone telephoned this afternoon?” 

“Only Mr. Davenport, ma’am. I told him 
you were not well and could not speak to him.” 

“Did he leave any message?” asked Yvonne. 

“No, ma’am. He seemed in a great hurry 
and told me to mail a letter which he wrote 
when he was here yesterday afternoon, and for- 
got to take with him. He said it was most im- 
portant.” 

“Oh, very well. Have you sent it?” 


58 The Distant Drum 

“No, ma’am. Hudson is going down with it 
in a few minutes.” 

Yvonne moved towards the stairs and then 
stopped. “Ballard, you might bring it to me.” 

The maid went out and appeared with a let- 
ter on a silver tray. Yvonne took it up casu- 
ally. As she glanced at the address she started, 
then stood a moment, holding her right hand to 
her forehead thinking furiously. 

“Ballard!” she said sharply. “I remember I 
have to go to the village. I’ll send this off my- 
self. Tell Hudson to be ready with the Renault 
— no, the two-seater — in ten minutes.” She 
went quickly upstairs to her bedroom. Closing 
the door carefully, she entered her dressing room 
and lit a spirit lamp under a small kettle of 
water, and waited impatiently for it to boil. 
Then taking up the envelope she held it care- 
fully in the steam until the flap began to curl 
at one edge, when she inserted a small knife, 
and carefully peeled the envelope open. 

A first perusal of the letter puzzled her. 
Then a look of understanding dawned upon her 
as she sank upon the edge of the bed and read it 
again more carefully. 


The Distant Drum 


59 


The sound of a throbbing engine broke the 
silence. A sharp grating noise came from the 
side of the house and a crunching of gravel, as 
the gear was engaged and the car moved from 
the garage. Yvonne slowly and deliberately 
put on a hat and dust coat and, dropping the let- 
ter into her bag, went down to the porch. She 
slipped into the driving seat and motioned to 
the man to get in beside her. Yvonne took the 
four miles of leafy lanes very carefully, con- 
trary to her usual wild dash down to the village. 
At the post office she alighted and went inside. 

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Sebastin,” the girl 
greeted her respectfully. 

“Good afternoon. I want a Brooklyn call, 
please.” She gave the number and waited. 

“You’re through, ma’am.” 

Yvonne went into the booth. “Is that Mr. 
Flinn’s office? I want Mr. Flinn, please. — 
Mrs. Sebastin — tell him I must speak to him. 
Say it’s in reference to the matter he was dis- 
cussing with me a fortnight ago. — Ah, is that 
you, Mr. Flinn? — Oh, yes, I can’t tell you over 
the ’phone, but I’ve got some very important 
information; will you come down to dinner to- 


6o 


The Distant Drum 


night? — All right, I won’t wait dinner, but I’ll 
expect you not later than ten. Good-bye.” 

Yvonne smiled pleasantly at the girl as she 
left the post office. 

“Hudson, I shall walk home,” she said to the 
chauffeur. “When you get back tell Ballard 
I’ve changed my mind about dinner. Ask her to 
have some chicken and a salad ready, and a 
small bottle of champagne put out, for seven 
o’clock.” 

Yvonne stepped out briskly in the track of 
her automobile, which disappeared in a cloud of 
dust. 

Shortly before ten that night, Flinn arrived. 
Yvonne greeted him at the porch, with some 
show of anxiety in her manner. 

“I’m glad you could come, Mr. Flinn. I’ve 
been very worried this afternoon. That’s why 
I telephoned you.” 

Flinn grunted, and looked round for a place 
to put his hat. 

“Shall we go out on the verandah?” Yvonne 
suggested. 

With a sigh of resignation, he put it back on 


The Distant Drum 61 

his head and followed her. A single shaded 
electric lamp dimly lit up a couple of easy 
chairs drawn closely together in the far corner 
of the verandah. 

“Will you have a highball, Mr. Flinn? 
You’ll find everything at that table beside you.” 
Yvonne sank into one of the easy chairs. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Sebastin, thank you.” He 
mixed himself a drink, lit a cigar and sat down 
heavily beside her. 

“Mr. Flinn, I’m not going to waste your time. 
I know you’d prefer me to come straight to the 
point,” she began. 

Flinn was puffing his cigar and staring out 
across the calm moonlit Sound to where the 
lights of Manhassett shone faintly through the 
black silhouette of the trees. He was appar- 
ently quite oblivious to what she was saying. 

“You asked me some little time ago for a 
name,” Yvonne went on. “Well, I’ve got it.” 

He turned and looked at her. “Waal, Mrs. 
Sebastin,” he said ponderously, “if it’s the name 
I want I guess I’m not out for wasting any time 
either. Let’s talk business. What can I do for 
you?” 


62 The Distant Drum 

Yvonne was inclined to be tearful. “You 
know it’s not a question of that. I know nothing 
about business.” 

Flinn was looking at her searchingly. “Waal, 
suppose I like to call it business, Mrs. Sebas- 
tin? Go on.” 

Yvonne shrugged her white shoulders. “It’s 
this way. I’ve got the name you want, and a 
good deal of information besides, and I’ve de- 
cided I ought to give it to you.” 

“As I said before, I’m open for a deal.” 

“Mr. Flinn, understand me,” she said with 
dignity. “I don’t want to be insulted. I want 
to protect myself, but at the same time to act 
conscientiously. Please put that everlasting 
idea of business out of your head for to-night 
and give me your advice as a friend.” She met 
his ferrety eyes unflinchingly. 

“I’m afraid,” Flinn said laconically, “I don’t 
understand you. But please go on.” 

“Tch!” She gave a gesture of impatience. 
“Of course you don’t understand. It was ab- 
surd of me to expect it. I could as easily coax 
Chopin out of a cash register as get sentiment 


The Distant Drum 63 

from you. At the first key I touch, up springs 
a dollar ticket.” 

Flinn was flattered. “Some people are 
mighty glad if it isn’t a ‘No Sale,’ ” he coun- 
tered with a twinkling eye. 

Yvonne regarded him dubiously. “I don’t be- 
lieve you are as hard as you make out, Mr. 
Flinn. At any rate I’ll give you the informa- 
tion, but I’m relying on you to be lenient with 
Mr. Davenport — that’s why I haven’t gone 
straight to the police.” 

“Well, what can I do?” Flinn grumbled. 
“As you say, it’s entirely a matter of business 
with me, however praiseworthy your motives 
may be. I’ve got to use the dope.” 

Yvonne pressed her forehead distractedly. 
“This is a very difficult position for me. Let 
me think,” she went on slowly. “My informa- 
tion consists of a letter to — to a man who seems 
to be his agent at Tampico. What do you pro- 
pose to do with it?” 

“Publish it, of course,” Flinn replied unhesi- 
tatingly. 

“Then that means—” 


6 4 


The Distant Drum 


“The Tombs!” He examined the ash on his 
cigar ruminatively. “That is, if he’s still to be 
found,” he concluded with a very straight look. 

“Oh!” Yvonne paused. “Well,” she went 
on with decision, “I suppose there’s no alterna- 
tive, unless — ” She tapped a little black satin 
shoe on the floor, “well, would it suit your pur- 
pose as well to give him time to get out of the 
country?” 

Flinn rubbed his fat hands briskly. “That’s 
a deal. I’ll give him a week.” 

Yvonne bit her lip with vexation, and smiled 
wearily at him. “You’re incorrigible, Mr. 
Flinn. It’s a good thing for you I’ve got a 
sense of humour to come to my rescue. Now, 
wait a moment and I’ll go and fetch the letter.” 

She rose and went into the house. Flinn set- 
tled himself deeply into his chair and resumed 
his scrutiny of the distant light of Manhassett. 
Yvonne returned with an open letter. 

“Listen to this,” she addressed Flinn, moving 
towards the light. 

The cold glare threw into relief and empha- 
sised the whiteness of a smooth bare shoulder 
of perfect contour, and the pallor of her deli- 


The Distant Drum 65 

cate, clean-cut profile as she stood erect with 
her graceful head slightly bent. A clinging 
black evening gown, with a single note of colour 
where a broad crimson scarf gathered it below 
the knees accentuated every mature curve of her 
slender figure. 

A strangely assorted pair, these two. The 
glory of the night and the fairness of the woman 
were surely calling for the words of a lover, 
and not the wiles of an old crafty politician. 

Yvonne began to read the letter. 

“Dear Kamphausen, 

“Yours of the 19th received. No, certainly 
not. You must go ahead exactly as you did on 
the first two properties. That’s essential to the 
whole scheme. I don’t want to risk ten years 
for the sake of saving a few hundred dollars. I 
am sending on the pyrites by the first coast boat 
addressed to Hickman at Tampico and you must 
get it up to him at the mine as best you can and 
tell him to make a good show with it for the next 
few weeks until the remaining flotations Nos. 5, 
7 and 8 on your schedule are through. Get 
through a word of caution to Hickman. If he 
smells any of Flinn’s men around Texapetl or 
any of the other New Era properties tell him to 


66 


The Distant Drum 


put the greasers on to them and get them run- 
ning. I don’t want him to get wise. Don’t go 
near the place yourself. I’ll write again in a 
few days. In the meantime communicate with 
me as before. I hope you have heard that Mrs. 
Kamphausen is better. 

“Yours, 

“W. K. D.” 

“I’m going to give you this letter, Mr. Flinn .” 
Yvonne folded it nervously and made a move- 
ment as though to hand it to him. He rose 
clumsily from his chair. 

“That’s good enough for me. I’ll hunt up 
W. K. D. to-night,” Flinn said with laboured 
facetiousness, and stretched out his hand. 
Yvonne seemed not to notice it. 

“By the way, Mr. Flinn,” she continued, look- 
ing down at the letter in her hand, “I don’t know 
when I’ll be meeting you again, so there’s one 
trifling thing I’d like to ask you now. Do 
you remember meeting an Englishman named 
Thorne? At Meadowbrook? I’ve an idea I’d 
rather like to know him. I wish you could ar- 
range to introduce me to him. It’s a stupid 
thing to ask you to-night, isn’t it?” 


The Distant Drum 67 

Flinn faced her with an inscrutable look in 
his hard little eyes. “All right, I’ll see to it.” 

“That’s so kind of you, Mr. Flinn,” Yvonne 
said brightly. She handed him the letter, 
which he read over and put in his pocket. 

“Will you have another highball? No, then 
I’ll see you to your car.” 

Yvonne walked with him to the porch. 

“Good night, Mrs. Sebastin,” Flinn growled. 
“You can make your mind easy now.” 

Yvonne stood watching the red tail light of 
his car twinkling away down the drive, then 
slowly she turned and, sweeping through the 
warm radiance of the lounge, sat down at the 
piano. 

A rose-shaded lamp close by lent a faint glow 
to her cheeks and caught the birth of a little 
smile on her uplifted face — the tender face of a 
nun at evensong. 

Then softly, lingeringly, her fingers touched 
the keys, and the notes of Puccini’s Due ladri 
occhi neri stirred the breathless night with their 
passionate challenge. 


CHAPTER VI 


J OHN FLINN’S chauffeur, following out 
his master’s emphatic but profane instruc- 
tions, gave him an extremely creditable imita- 
tion of a joy ride in the nether regions, and the 
clock on the Metropolitan Tower barely pointed 
to eleven as he jumped out of the car at the 
Queensborough Bridge to turn out the head- 
lights. 

Flinn’s first idea had been to drive straight 
to Davenport’s office, where he was always to 
be found at this time of night, but with a cer- 
tain grim humour he changed his mind, and 
beckoning the chauffeur to him, redirected 
him to Davenport’s apartments on Riverside 
Drive. He found the valet just on the point of 
going out. 

“Mr. Davenport won’t be back to-night, sir,” 
the man explained. 

“He’ll be here in an hour,” Flinn said ab- 
ruptly, pushing past him. 

68 


The Distant Drum 


69 


“I don’t think so, sir.” 

Flinn walked into the dining-room and seated 
himself at a writing table. “Say!” he growled 
over his shoulder, “I’m going to write a note to 
Mr. Davenport and I want you to take it down 
to my chauffeur.” 

“Very good, sir.” The valet waited obedi- 
ently. 

Pulling a piece of paper towards him, Flinn 
scribbled a few lines quickly, hesitated a mo- 
ment, and tore it up. 

According to reliable historians John Flinn, 
political boss, smiled five times in his life. This 
was one of the recorded occasions. He took 
a fresh sheet of paper and chewing the end of 
the pen for a few seconds, started again more 
deliberately. 

“Dear Mr. Davenport 

“I have just looked in at your apartments to 
see if you’d care to come back and have a bite 
of supper and a chat. I’m disappointed to hear 
from your valet that you’re not expected back 
to-night and I don’t want to upset your arrange- 
ments, but in case you could manage it, I’ll wait 
here until twelve fifteen. I can’t wait any 


The Distant Drum 


70 

longer as I may have to look in at the Financial 
Clarion before it goes to press — Here Flinn 
scratched his head with the end of the pen and 
continued. — By the way, Mrs. Kamphausen is 
doing very well. A quarter after twelve. 

“Yours faithfully, 

“John Flinn.” 

Flinn read this guileless effort again with 
considerable relish before sealing it in its en- 
velope. 

His own thoughts and Davenport’s whisky 
provided pleasant enough company for him un- 
til a certain distinctive hoot and a shrieking of 
brakes on the Drive below rose above the vague 
noise of the traffic, and roused him. He glanced 
at the clock on the mantelpiece and waited till 
he heard the front door close. Then, crossing 
the room, he opened the door quickly, and with 
surprising neatness seized Yvonne by the arm 
and half dragged her out of the darkness of the 
hall into the room. 

“Good evening again, Mrs. Sebastin!” He 
closed the door quietly behind her. 

“My God! How you frightened me!” 
Yvonne’s features were an interesting blend of 


The Distant Drum 


7i 

fear, indignation and amazement. “Is Daven- 
port here?” she gasped. 

It was seldom she was caught at a disadvan- 
tage, but for a moment she clutched at Flinn 
for much-needed support. He was mildly 
amused at the success of his little surprise. 

“He’s coming, but he can’t arrive for half an 
hour,” he said imperturbably. “You silly 
woman, what ever made you come up here?” 

Yvonne gripped her self-possession with an 
effort and shook herself free. “I didn’t expect 
to find you here — I thought you’d be at his of- 
fice.” 

Flinn was almost playful. “Waal, we’ve 
fixed up a little supper. Are you going to join 
us?” 

“Mr. Flinn, I’d better go,” she said nervously. 
“I — I only came for some letters.” 

“Oh — ho! Like that, eh?” He still kept 
his position by the door. 

“Yes,” Yvonne continued rapidly, “just some- 
thing foolish. I — I promised to marry him 
once. There, now, I’ve let it out. I didn’t 
want to leave them here now — you can under- 
stand that, of course.” 


72 


The Distant Drum 


Her agitation, however, seemed more than 
this somewhat conventional explanation of her 
presence warranted. Flinn was frankly puz- 
zled. 

“Well, hurry up, you silly child,” he said. 
“Get them. Don’t mind me.” 

Yvonne started off again irrelevantly, casting 
uneasy glances round the room. “However did 
you know it was I?” 

“Your chauffeur told me — ” Flinn began stol- 
idly. 

Yvonne looked incredulous. 

“ — when he sounded that new French hooter 
of yours as he drove up. I haven’t heard an- 
other like it in New York. But come along, get 
your letters and run away.” 

Yvonne was not accustomed to having her 
pet schemes treated in this off-hand fashion. 
Showing signs of considerable pique she glanced 
hurriedly round the room and walked to the 
writing table. Flinn watched her carefully as 
she pulled out drawer after drawer at hazard. 
Then her right hand attracted his attention. He 
went casually up to her. “Mrs. Sebastin, don’t 
be foolish!” He laid his hand on her arm in 


The Distant Drum 


73 


a fatherly manner. Yvonne turned in surprise. 
“You know you’re not looking for anything,” he 
went on. 

“I — beg your — ” 

Flinn suddenly shot his hand away from her 
arm and before she could make a move, had 
withdrawn a letter from her low corsage. 
“That’s more like it!” 

“Give that to me at once!” Yvonne screamed, 
and made an infuriated lunge at him. 

“Now, Mrs. Sebastin, stand over there and 
keep quiet. I haven’t much more time for this 
playing about,” Flinn said curtly. Still keep- 
ing his back to the door, he opened the letter 
and read it. “H’m! Very pretty, v-ery pretty! 
So I stole Davenport’s letter, did I? Well, 
well — ” He shook his head. “You’ve the 
makings of a clever woman, but — ” 

Yvonne broke in desperately. “I had to do 
it — can’t you see, I had to do it? Directly you’d 
gone I realised what a dangerous position I was 
in. I’d overlooked that. I was at his mercy 
for a whole week.” She went up to Flinn ap- 
pealingly. “For God’s sake, let him have it! 
It can’t do you any harm, and he might — oh, 


The Distant Drum 


74 

he might do anything if he found out that I’d 
given you the letter. I came straight up here 
to leave this rubbish to keep him quiet. I can’t 
risk a scene with a man like that — a crook — ” 
Yvonne broke down and put her hands on 
Flinn’s broad, shabby shoulders. “Ah, God! 
I’m afraid — desperately afraid!” she sobbed 
hysterically. 

Flinn took a long steady look into the depths 
of her streaming eyes, and was apparently sat- 
isfied with what he saw. “Come, Mrs. Sebas- 
tin, that’ll be all right. Don’t get yourself all 
fussed up,” he said awkwardly. John Flinn 
was not experienced in the art of handling 
lovely, distressed women. “I’ll see that Daven- 
port gets your letter.” 

Yvonne’s little storm was gradually dying 
away. “You’re a perfectly sweet old man, Mr. 
Flinn, really.” 

“Now then, cut if out,” Flinn shook a fat 
finger at her. “You’ll be flirting with me next.” 

She smiled at this dark innuendo. 

“But take a word of advice from an old — cash 
register,” he went on. “If you must write let- 
ters in your automobile — oh, yes, you did, you 


The Distant Drum 75 

had no time after I left, because you were only 
fifteen minutes after me, and my lad lost no 
time — if you must do it, I say, don’t use a leaking 
pen!” 

Yvonne, dumfounded, looked at her right 
hand, the glove dangling from her wrist. Flinn 
held open the door. 

“Oh, just a moment, Mrs. Sebastin. Say, 
you got me guessing over where you had that 
letter,” he said gravely. 

“Oh, yes, of course,” Yvonne stopped at the 
door. “How on earth did you know where it 
was?” 

“I didn't know — except that it was on you 
somewhere.” His manner was verging on the 
severe, but his eyes betrayed him. “Goodness 
knows what I should have done if it had been 
in your stocking. It had to be found, you know! 
Good night.” 

A light little laugh came from Yvonne as 
Flinn closed the door on her. 

It was obviously an occasion to be celebrated, 
Flinn decided, chuckling happily at the subtlety 
of his little joke. 

After putting back the decanter, he returned 


The Distant Drum 


76 

to the excavation he had already made in Dav- 
enport’s favourite chair. He was quite aware 
that Yvonne had gone off in some irritation in 
spite of her gracious smile, and that the feeling 
that would, not unnaturally perhaps, outweigh 
all others in her Napoleonic mind, as she drove 
home, would be the uncomfortable one of hav- 
ing been treated with the amused tolerance ex- 
tended to a naughty, spoilt child. Though it 
had amused him to foster this impression, Flinn 
had a very lively appreciation of her capabili- 
ties, and he was quite convinced that, had not the 
little incident of her inky finger given him the 
key to the situation, she would have found some 
means of leaving her letter unobserved while 
under his very nose. Flinn pulled out the letter 
and read it again with increasing admiration. 

“Wilbur, 

“I am very upset at what I have discov- 
ered to-day about you. You will have heard 
from Flinn what has happened. I had to send 
for him when I discovered the letter, as he had 
dropped hints some time ago which had wor- 
ried me, but I had no idea it was anything so 
crooked as that. It seems that the New Era 


The Distant Drum 


77 


Silver Mines are nothing less than a gigantic 
swindle that you and this man Kamphausen are 
working. I think it is disgraceful. All the 
same I am sorry he got the letter. I had no idea 
he would use force, although most women would 
have felt justified in deliberately giving it to 
him. I feel very, very strongly about it all. 
It seems so terrible that I can hardly realise it. 
It was all I could do to get Flinn to give you 
a week to get away in. I hardly know what to 
think. You can’t expect me to feel very affec- 
tionate at present, but you must promise me not 
to come near me for the week before you go if 
you want me to stick to you. Go away and start 
afresh, and I’ll wait. I’ve done all I can. I 
am driving up at great speed to leave this, and 
scribbling it on the way. You can communi- 
cate with me through my brother. 

“Yvonne.” 

Flinn was by no means annoyed at the un- 
blushing slander it contained of his own lofty 
principles; in fact, he was quite proud to make 
a burnt offering of them on the altar of her in- 
genuity. He was satisfied, from his own keen 
observation, that the feeling of anxiety which 
had prompted Yvonne to concoct this master- 


The Distant Drum 


78 

piece of plausibility was genuine, and he failed 
to see the need for such a state of apprehension 
in a woman who was so remarkably capable of 
looking after herself. To Flinn, whose ready 
nerve had been his greatest asset through life, 
Yvonne Sebastin’s reputation for cool presence 
of mind had always made particular appeal, 
while Davenport’s bluster, he knew from per- 
sonal experience, was always ready to desert him 
when in contact with a show of firmness. And, 
for this reason, his forthcoming interview was 
not likely to be half as entertaining as his little 
duel with Yvonne. 

As Davenport entered, Flinn saw at once that 
his surmise had been correct. It was going to 
be too easy. 

For an exasperating twenty minutes or so 
Flinn refused to take him seriously, and insisted 
upon having an impromptu supper in which 
Davenport was only interested to the extent of 
three large brandies. During the course of the 
meal, Flinn contented himself with a few mild 
gibes as to the future prosperity of the Magnet 
under a new regime, and then, having carefully 
withdrawn his napkin and picked his teeth, he 


The Distant Drum 79 

lit a cigar and laid a brutally plain statement 
of the situation before his victim. 

“And so,” he concluded affably, “I guess 
you’ll see you’re up against it good and plenty, 
this time.” 

Davenport did see it. So plainly that meta- 
phorically his hands went up at once. 

“For God’s sake listen to reason,” he pleaded. 
“I’ll make any terms you like.” 

Flinn’s tone changed completely. “See here, 
young man, you had your chance a fortnight 
ago. I’m not here to make terms with you. 
Anything I do is to suit my own arrangements. 
Now, with this evidence,” he tapped the table 
with Davenport’s incriminating letter to Kamp- 
hausen, “I could start you to the Tombs to-mor- 
row. Well, I’m not going to do that.” 

“Thank God! Thank God! I — I knew you 
didn’t mean that, Flinn.” Davenport stopped 
his nervous pacing up and down and made 
quickly towards Flinn, holding out his hand. 
“I — you wouldn’t let me — ” 

“Aw, get away, you boob!” Flinn’s opinion 
of this outburst landed neatly in the fireplace. 
“I’d let you go plumb to hell for all I care. 


8o 


The Distant Drum 


You don’t suppose I’m going to let you get away 
with it. You’ve been playing dirty tricks on 
me now for three years — durned dirty tricks. 
There’s even a clean way of grafting, but you 
don’t know the first thing about it. You sold 
your friends right and left, and now I’ve got 
you. I’m not going to take any more chances. 
I’ve got my own reasons for not giving it to the 
police, but you’re a gol darned dirty rat and 
I’m going to twist your tail, and this’ll do it.” 
Flinn slammed the letter violently on to the 
table and stood up, his flinty eyes gleaming with 
contempt. 

“What do you mean, Flinn?” Davenport 
lurched towards him again, brokenly. 

“You’ve got to beat it clean out of the States. 
I’m going to give you a week because I shall 
have some dope to go in your paper first before 
it goes to bed for the last time. D’you get me? 
You’ve got to put me right. After that, well, 
you know who’s waiting to publish that letter, 
eh? Now, then,” — Flinn walked to the writ- 
ing table and studied a calendar with his back 
to Davenport— “this is the sixteenth. You’ve 
got till midnight on the twenty-third before I 


The Distant Drum 


Si 


publish the — ” Flinn’s mind flashed back to 
the letter to Kamphausen which he had left on 
the table. He wheeled quickly round. As he 
feared, Davenport had it. He was backing 
away to the far side of the table, clutching 
the letter and glaring at Flinn. His white, 
twitching face began to be smeared with dull 
blotches of unhealthy red and a pulse drummed 
madly in his temple. 

A long string of foul, inconsequent oaths 
rushed to his lips and burst out hysterically. 
He consigned Flinn to all known forms of 
torture on earth and improvised unspeakable 
agonies for him in his future state. Then with 
a triumphant wave of the letter he broke fresh 
ground. “You blasted fox! You were too 
damned clever this time,” he screamed. 

Flinn was impassively watching every move- 
ment of the letter. “Wilbur K. Davenport isn’t 
done yet by a long way,” Davenport continued. 
“It’ll take something more than a clumsy old 
fool like you to get it from me!” 

Flinn decided upon a gamble, thanking his 
lucky stars that Davenport so far did not know 
of the existence of Yvonne’s letter to him. 


82 


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Davenport stretched his hand towards a box 
of matches on the white tablecloth, and went on 
with strained jocularity. “Watch me do a little 
conjuring trick with this bit of paper. You can 
take the result back to that lying she-devil who 
gave it to you. Think I don’t know who started 
all this?” He drew in his breath sharply and 
paused. “God!” he muttered, and his voice 
broke. “Flinn, you don’t understand the worst 
part of this for me. I was crazy about her — 
crazy. She’s finished it — with this.” The 
suggestion in the words roused him to frenzy, 
and he fumbled for a match and struck it. 
“She’s tried to put me away — and, God help me, 
I’m crazy about her now — always shall be, the 
damned — ” 

“Davenport!” Flinn’s sharp ejaculation 
halted the little blue and yellow flame. It 
flickered uncertainly an inch off the letter. 

“Don’t burn that yet, you fool!” Flinn said 
evenly. “Here’s a letter from Mrs. Sebastin 
that’ll change your mind. I’ll trade it.” 

Davenport peered at the handwriting on the 
envelope in Flinn’s hand, hesitated, and then 
blew the match out. “What’s it about?” he 


The Distant Drum 83 

said unsteadily. “What the hell are you doing 
with it? Give it to me.” 

“Don’t be a fool. I’ll read it to you.” As 
he did so, he looked up now and again to watch 
the effect on Davenport. At the concluding 
lines Davenport looked up eagerly. 

“Well, Flinn?” 

“It’s like this,” Flinn began, emphasising 
every word. “I’m not going to bluff you. 
This letter of Mrs. Sebastin’s is not so much 
good to me as the one you have. It’s not what 
I want — you know that. But I’ll go further 
than that. It might take much longer to do 
anything with her letter than that one. But” — 
Flinn looked very steadily at Davenport and 
played his trump card with little hope of suc- 
cess from his estimate of the latter’s character — 
“if you won’t trade, I shall publish her letter 
instead of yours — and that won’t do her a lot of 
good, will it?” Flinn waited. 

The other man handed him the incriminating 
letter cheerfully. “You can do what you like 
with this one, John. I’d rather have Mrs. 
Sebastin’s,” he said simply. 

Flinn shrugged his shoulders and made the 


The Distant Drum 


exchange. “Waal, this goes in on the twenty- 
third,” he said gruffly. “I wish you luck.” 

“Thanks! I’m glad there’s one thing you 
can’t do me down for.” Davenport was bitter. 
“You think you got me beat, but I’ve got quite 
a lot left. Go away and leave me with it, 
Flinn.” He fingered the letter impatiently. 

Flinn picked up his hat and stood undecided 
for a moment. Then he walked quickly to the 
door. 

“Good night,” he said. 

There was no answer. He looked round at 
Davenport. Then, “Say, that’s a cruel fake of 
hers!” he muttered to himself. “Poor devil!” 
and went out quietly. 

Flinn drove moodily to his modest home in 
Brooklyn where his pleasant-faced old Southern 
wife was waiting up for him. 

It was a long time before he could rid him- 
self of the memory of that lonely man — a crook 
and a blackguard — looking out beyond the dark 
Hudson, building up a new life contentedly on 
his only asset — a letter! 


CHAPTER VII 


TJUNNY THORNE stood patiently by the 
last hole, flicking at the angry mosquitoes 
with one hand and holding up the flag with the 
other.: A cloud of sand rose lazily into the still 
air from the depths of a bunker beside the green, 
followed by a little terse commentary on the 
vagaries of golf balls in general with a gloomy 
hint as to the ultimate destination of one in par- 
ticular. Thorne grinned brutally. 

“How many’s that, Mrs. Sebastin?” he called 
out. “You’re not leaving much sand for the 
next players!” 

Yvonne’s flushed face appeared over the edge 
of the bunker. “You beast!” she exclaimed 
with an heroic attempt to be crushing. “You 
needn’t laugh at me. I’ve still got two for the 
hole. Now, don’t interrupt. I’m busy.” The 
golden-brown head dipped out of sight again, 
and Thorne subsided, awaiting the result of 
Yvonne’s hidden machinations. Then a clean- 
85 


86 


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cut metallic click preceded another miniature 
sandstorm and the ball was rolling limply on to 
the edge of the green. 

“Oh, good shot! You’re just over!” 

Yvonne climbed up triumphantly and took her 
putter from the bag. “Now, then, Mr. Thorne, 
I’m playing the like. Watch me hole out.” 

He laughed cheerfully as he surveyed the 
dozen yards of rolling turf between him and the 
ball. “I have seen those missed, Mrs. Sebastin 
— not by you, of course,” he added hastily as she 
gave him a withering glance. 

With amusing concentration Yvonne took her 
stand and glared at the unfortunate ball for some 
seconds. Finding, however, that this produced 
no perceptible effect, with the deadly playful- 
ness of a cat administering the last rites to 
a captive mouse, she gave the ball a pat. 
Thorne’s spontaneous chuckle died away piti- 
fully and his expression became one of reverent 
awe as the demoralised victim of her hypnotic 
gaze took a halting, drunken course down hill, 
and with a final, inconsequent swerve dived into 
the hall. 


The Distant Drum 87 

“There! what did I tell you?” Yvonne said 
with a casual air. She watched him darkly. 
Realising that the occasion was too great a one 
to be spoilt by mere words, Bunny silently 
walked to the hole, picked out the ball and held 
it to her gingerly between his thumb and fore- 
finger. 

“Don’t lose this, Mrs. Sebastin. It ought to 
be worth money, whatever it is. Can we get a 
cup of tea here? It might pull me together.” 

“Oh, that’s mere laziness,” Yvonne retorted. 
“You can last out till we get home. As a matter 
of fact, though,” she went on ingenuously, “I 
wasn’t sure at one time that it was going in.” 

“I couldn’t have sworn to it myself,” Thorne 
remarked drily. “However — well, let me see, 
you beat me by three holes. Twenty-five cents 
a hole — that’s seventy-five cents.” He produced 
a crumpled handful of bills from his trouser 
pocket. “Help yourself, Mrs. Sebastin. I’m 
not quite at home with this money, yet. Here, 
have this one. It’s the cleanest.” 

Yvonne glanced at the bill he was offering 
her. “Never mind now,” she said amusedly. 


88 


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“Wait until you’ve got change. As a matter of 
fact, I never carry as much as that when I’m 
golfing.” 

Bunny took stock of it more carefully, and 
laughed. “A hundred, eh! Stupid of me! — I 
beg your pardon, let me take your clubs.” 

They sauntered off the links into a green cav- 
ernous lane, pierced here and there with flash- 
ing blades of sunlight. Bunny walked beside 
her with long patient strides and head bent, con- 
tentedly studying the simple graceful figure in 
white with its shining glory of golden-brown 
hair. The clubs jerked awkwardly behind him 
as he held them on his shoulder with a bare, sun- 
burnt arm. Yvonne prattled away charmingly, 
making careless digs at the sandy road with her 
sunshade. 

“I suppose everything is strange to you at 
first,” she said presently. “I’m always so inter- 
ested in Englishmen’s impressions that I have to 
catechise them. Tell me, what do you think of 
this little city?” 

“The same, I suppose, as every other visitor. 
All the women are lovely, and most of the build- 
ings immense! I know when I get back, I shall 


The Distant Drum 89 

look upon London as a collection of thatched 
cottages.” 

“It’s quite a merry little village, though,” 
Yvonne continued dreamily, “from my recollec- 
tion of it. The lads and lasses haven’t much to 
learn from us. I had a splendid time when I 
was there. Why do you spoil us Americans so?” 

“I’m just beginning to realise how backward 
we are in that respect,” he replied. “American 
hospitality is a lesson to me. There’s nothing 
to equal it on our side.” 

“Do you really think so, Mr. Thorne?” 

“I do,” he replied with conviction. “We 
think we’re doing a stranger well if we ask him 
to lunch. But over here! Why, I could pack 
up and go away for three months on the invita- 
tions I’ve had from acquaintances of an hour’s 
standing.” 

Yvonne was amused. “I hope you’re not 
going to be as popular as that, or we shan’t be 
able to have many more games of golf.” 

“Oh, it isn’t a question of popularity, Mrs. 
Sebastin. It’s just sheer good feeling. Take 
Mr. Flinn, for example. I’m not the sort of 
man to appeal to him in any way, and yet he 


90 


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took the trouble to hunt me up — I’d only met 
him once before for a few minutes^-and take 
me down to Sand Beach last Thursday. Indi- 
rectly I owe these charming days I’ve spent with 
you entirely to that hospitable notion of his. 
It’s very lucky for me that you happened to be 
lunching there as well.” 

“I’m very glad I was,” said Yvonne frankly, 
“although I often take a book and run over 
there these hot days.” 

The cool shade of the interlaced foliage de- 
serted them as they turned into the naked white 
road leading to her house. 

“What a terrible glare! I don’t know how 
you manage to survive Garden City in this heat. 
I had a look round there myself, before I took 
this house, but it seemed to be one eternal hum 
of mosquitoes and aeroplanes.” 

Bunny laughed. “Well, there is a good deal 
of competition between them, sometimes, cer- 
tainly, but it’s a very nice spot and there are 
some charming people there. Besides it’s much 
preferable to getting down from New York at 
five in the morning to get the right weather.” 

“I suppose you’re determined to go on with 


The Distant Drum 


9i 


this idea of flying,” Yvonne said casually. 
“Whatever made you take it up? I know wings 
are very ornamental, but why anticipate them? 
We shall all have them one day if we’re good.” 

“My dear lady,” he replied, “the order was 
placed for yours in the next world the moment 
you were born. We others, who are not so cer- 
tain of them, have to content ourselves with an 
early delivery for cash.” 

“That’s very gallant of you, Mr. Thorne, I 
only hope it’s true. But — oh, well, you won’t 
take any notice of what I say — do take care of 
yourself, that’s all,” she said lightly as they 
turned in at the drive. “Tell me, have you 
started housekeeping yet with your friends?” 

“Oh, yes, I meant to tell you.” Bunny smiled 
with sudden recollection. “They arrived at the 
cottage from New York at four o’clock this 
morning with two valets and a parcel of ham 
and eggs. So any doubts I may have had were 
at once dispelled — although we haven’t any 
servants yet.” 

Yvonne shuddered. “The possibilities of 
such a minage are too vast for my imagination. 
Who’s going to do the cooking?” 


92 


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“Bobby Reid offered to look after it to-day, 
but he’s been relieved of any further duty. He 
shirked it disgracefully at lunch and we had to 
drink the pancakes!” 

“You poor thing! In that case I withdraw 
my remarks about flying. If it will make you 
miss any meals, keep in your aeroplane. But 
no wonder you want your tea. Hullo, Mabs, 
darling!” she cried delightedly, as the little 
figure in her white frock jumped down the porch 
steps and ran up to them. Yvonne bent down 
and kissed the delicate face. 

“Oh, Auntie ’Vonne, I’m so glad you’re home. 
I do want to have a swim. Can’t we go and 
undress now?” 

Yvonne laughed and stroked the dark curls 
caressingly, as they went into the house. “You 
can’t always be in the water, Mabs. I took 
you in this morning. Perhaps we’ll take you 
in the motor-boat presently if you’re good. 
Now, run and tell Ballard we want tea at once.” 
Mab’s long legs flashed out of the room excitedly. 

“Put those clubs down anywhere and make 
yourself at home. I’m quite tired,” said 
Yvonne. 


The Distant Drum 


93 

“Bright kid, that little niece of yours, Mrs. 
Sebastin,” said Bunny, pushing an easy chair up 
to the table for her. 

“Yes, she’s a dear little thing, but a bit of a 
‘terrible child.’ One has to be deaf and dumb 
sometimes when she’s about. She told one of 
my dearest enemies the other day that she was 
with me when I got my face colour. And un- 
fortunately it was true.” 

“Where was that?” Bunny asked with interest. 
“On the golf links?” 

“No. In a drug store,” Yvonne replied with 
enjoyment. “Now, don’t trouble to reply to 
that, because it’s unanswerable. Here’s the tea.” 

Mabs followed the maid in, with the dignity 
befitting her responsible position. 

“Come and sit by auntie, you imp, and tell her 
what you’ve been doing this afternoon.” 

“I haven’t done much while you’ve been out,” 
Mabs replied in a matter-of-fact manner. “I 
helped Ballard feed the chickens, and I watched 
Hudson clean the car, and I found a worm — ” 

“Don’t be horrid! Pass Mr. Thorne the 
cake.” Yvonne was busy ferreting out a small 
lump of sugar. 


94 


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“ — a worm, and I cut him up — ” 

“Mabs, will you be quiet. Pass Mr. Thorne 
the cake, I said.” 

“ — and he had green blood — ” 

“Mabs!” 

Thorne laughed outright. 

“ — blood — ” she rummaged desperately in 
the pocket of a clean pinafore, becoming aware 
from an ominous look on Yvonne’s face that her 
moments were numbered, then held out her 
hand. 

“ — and here’s his tail! — ” she managed to 
shout triumphantly before she was seized and 
led out to execution. Yvonne returned as the 
telephone bell rang. Helpless with laughter 
she went to a side table and lifted the receiver. 

“Hullo ! — yes, long distance speaking 

all right, I’ll hold the line.” 

With the receiver at her ear she turned a 
flushed, smiling face to Thorne. “Isn’t that 
child the — ” She broke off. Fear leapt into 
her eyes and her face blanched and grew rigid. 
She wheeled back to the telephone. 

“Shall I go?” Thorne rose quickly from his 
chair in some embarrassment. 


The Distant Drum 


95 

Yvonne put her right hand over the transmit- 
ter. If she paused it was barely noticeable. 

“Oh, it’s — it’s nothing. I’d rather you 
waited.” She dropped her hand from the trans- 
mitter, and keeping her back to him, spoke in 
a rapid, perfectly natural voice. 

“Yes, Mr. Davenport — speaking be- 
cause I’ve been out a good deal I suppose 

you’re going to-day what what can I 

do?— I don’t want to be harsh, but I couldn’t 
dream of being mixed up in such a disgraceful 
business. Look at the position you might have 
put me into, after receiving you at my house 

1 did say so, but how could you possibly 

expect me to marry you now 1 am absolutely 

through. You mustn’t speak to me again — * 

what? how dare you, you crook! — ” She 

slammed the receiver back violently, and buried 
her face in her hands. A long-drawn shudder- 
ing “Oh-h” escaped from her. 

Thorne walked quietly out on to the verandah. 

A few minutes later Yvonne followed him. 
“Come back and let’s finish our tea, Mr. 
Thorne,” she said brightly, “and then we’ll take 
Mabs out in the motor-boat.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


«D UT isn’t it too windy to-day, Mr. 

Thorne?” 

“What does that matter? I’ve got to get used 
to it sometime or other, and it isn’t often one 
gets a wind in this frightful heat.” 

Yvonne was persistent. “It isn’t worth taking 
chances just for the fun of the thing. It’s not 
as if you were a professional, and you’ve had 
very little experience. Even St. John isn’t out 
yet, and he goes up in most weathers.” 

Bunny was leaning carelessly against the radi- 
ator of his car. “I can’t help that, Mrs. Sebas- 
tin,” he said firmly. “Besides, it’s going down 
now. Look at the flag.” 

Yvonne turned in the low seat behind the big 
raked steering wheel of Thorne’s Grand Prix 
Mercedes standing in front of the open doors 
of his hangar, and glanced at a little Union Jack 
fluttering from the roof. She was looking 
slightly surprised at Bunny’s unexpected terse- 

96 


The Distant Drum 


97 


ness. With a little gesture of annoyance she 
closed her sunshade and put her hands on the 
steering wheel. “Oh, very well, Mr. Thorne. 
Of course it’s nothing to do with me. If you’ll 
start the engine, I’ll move the car out of the way 
of the machine.” 

Thorne absent-mindedly bent down and gave 
one or two vicious tugs at the starting handle 
without result. He looked up. “Give her a 
little more gas, Mrs. Sebastin.” 

Yvonne was smiling at him from under her 
big, shady, rose-covered hat. 

“Oh, what temper!” She moved the throttle 
lever a fraction of an inch. “Now, then!” 

He was successful this time. She skilfully 
moved the car into a better position, switched 
off the engine, and alighted. By the time 
Yvonne had leisurely opened her sunshade and 
sauntered back to the shed, Bunny was busily 
superintending the toilet of his Farman biplane. 
Finding that he was apparently too engrossed 
to talk to her at the moment, she wandered off 
with a shrug of her expressive shoulders. 

It was a Saturday afternoon, and there was a 
fair sprinkling of spectators round the sheds at 


The Distant Drum 


98 

the Garden City aerodrome. All the doors in 
the long line of green-painted hangars were 
swung back and from their interiors came an 
occasional, intermittent roar of an engine being 
tested. Already in front of one or two sheds 
stood big, clumsy looking biplanes, and their 
smaller sisters, the neat racy monoplanes. 
Blue-overalled mechanics were dodging round 
the machines filling the petrol tanks, testing the 
wiring or giving final touches to the engines. 
Here and there a leather-clad aviator was critic- 
ally watching the effect of the wind upon the 
flags over the sheds, or doing his best to en- 
lighten the interested but sometimes hopelessly 
ignorant spectators, upon the uses of different 
parts of the machines. Beyond the ropes, the 
undulating field stretched for half a mile, bare 
and deserted except for a few officials marking 
out a course with a long tape measure. 

Yvonne, who had become quite at Home 
among the various machines, and their owners, 
during the few weeks that Thorne had taken to 
this new hobby, was interested. A slim, long- 
legged youth in white flannels and tennis shoes 
approached her with the jaunty stride of an 


The Distant Drum 


99 


over-grown schoolboy, hands in pockets. His 
open, sunburnt face flushed boyishly as he caught 
sight of her. 

“How do you do, Mr. St. John?” she said 
pleasantly. “Are you going out soon? I want 
to see that new monoplane of yours I’ve heard 
so much about from Mr. Thorne.” 

“Oh, yes, I’m going to take the old bus for a 
joy ride in a few minutes,” he replied. There 
was a hint of a strong personality behind his 
boyish manner. “She’s nearly ready. I only 
got her through the customs this morning. 
Want a hop?” 

“Not to-day, thank you. I expect you’ll be 
busy enough. Everybody wants to go up with 
you.” 

He flushed again modestly. “It all means 
dollars, Mrs. Sebastin. I’m very mercenary, 
you know.” 

This was anything but the truth, for St. John, 
although one of the most skilful and daring fly- 
ers in the world, and consequently making huge 
sums of money, was at the same time one of the 
very few who flew for the sheer pleasure of it. 

He went on. “There’s Bunny Thorne’s 


IOO 


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machine out. What’s he up to to-day— going 
to push over the Metropolitan Building? 1 ’ St. 
John grinned. 

“Oh, I think I’ll go and see him start, Mr. 
St. John,” Yvonne said. “Perhaps I’ll see you 
at tea-time.” She left him abruptly. 

Thorne was sitting in his biplane, which had 
been hauled from its shed into the field. The 
Gnome engine was turning with an angry roar. 
Three or four mechanics, hanging desperately 
on to the tail of the impatient machine, their 
hair standing straight back from their heads in 
the fierce hurricane of dust raised by the propel- 
ler, were being dragged along, inch by inch, 
digging their heels in the ground. Seeing 
Yvonne approaching, Bunny switched off the 
engine, and the mechanics looked almost human 
again. She moved towards him gracefully, 
seemingly unconscious of the interest her ap- 
pearance created amongst the crowd gathered 
behind the ropes. 

“I’ll be back in a minute!” Bunny shouted 
through the settling dust. “Will you wait in 
the car, unless — would you care to trust your- 
self to me?” 


The Distant Drum ioi 

“Rather! I’d love to!” she answered quickly. 

Thorne climbed down and showed her how to 
get up into the little passenger seat which was 
wedged in closely between the gasoline tank and 
his own perch on the edge of the plane. As she 
settled herself with some difficulty, feeling more 
self-conscious than nervous, two or three press 
photographers came running out and snapped 
her from different points of vantage. Thorne 
stood below, his hands on his hips, smiling up 
at her. 

“You make a very pretty picture, Mrs. Sebas- 
tin, but you’ll have to take your hat off. It 
might get blown into the propeller. Here, I’ll 
give you a hand.” He swung himself up on to 
the top step and helped her to disengage the hat- 
pins and fix her veil. 

“Aren’t you afraid of my hair going too?” 
She looked at him with mock anxiety. 

“Not unless you lose your head as well, and 
that’s not likely,” he replied confidently. 

She was glad that he turned round at this mo- 
ment to hand her hat to St. John below. 

Bunny settled himself down in his seat, 
grasped the lever in his right hand in a business- 


102 


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like manner and with his left snapped on the 
switch. “All right! Start her up,” he called 
out over his shoulder. A sudden deafening 
roar broke out right behind Yvonne, and the 
machine quivered all over. It was at this stage 
that she wished she had not been quite so im- 
pulsive. A vivid picture formed in her mind 
of the machine as it would appear from the 
ground in a few moments — a fragile thing of 
canvas and wire, tossing about in space at the 
mercy of the wind — and for the first time she 
felt distinctly nervous as she convinced herself 
that she would feel giddy and want to jump out. 
Her suspense increased as she wondered when 
the men were going to leave go. Bunny waved 
his hand and the biplane, suddenly released, 
started off across the ground, bumping and 
swaying like a Fifth Avenue motor-bus running 
amok. As it gathered speed her sinking of the 
heart grew stronger, until she was almost 
tempted to cry out to the broad, grey-flannelled 
back in front of her, to stop. 

Suddenly the vibration of the wheels over the 
rough grass ceased and the machine became taut 
and steady. Screwing up her courage, she 


The Distant Drum 103 

looked down over the front edge of the plane 
and saw the ground falling away beneath them. 
They were in the air immediately. Her dread 
left her. As the big biplane forged its way 
upwards, she began to experience illimita- 
ble exhilaration. The movements, as it met 
the occasional gusts, contrasted strangely with 
her previous mental picture. To her now they 
resembled nothing so much as the slow de- 
liberate rolling of a liner in a heavy swell. 
Tears were streaming from her eyes and her 
hair began to break loose from her veil under 
the determined buffeting of the terrific rush of 
air raised by the machine as the engine with ear- 
splitting racket drove it through the still atmo- 
sphere. Thorne turned his head and she heard 
his voice faintly above the din. 

“Are you all right?” 

She shouted back a reassurance, and at once 
realised how it must feel to be struck dumb. 
Then she bent towards him and summoning all 
her strength shouted again in his ear. She saw 
him smiling, and was aware of a stabbing thrill 
as her lips almost touched the crisp hair at the 
nape of his neck. Then a sense of weird inti- 


104 The Distant Drum 

macy stole over her, a sense of content at being 
so strangely, completely alone with this master- 
ful man in this new world of theirs — and yet 
she did not know if he loved her. With un- 
conscious continuity of thought she noticed the 
needle of the height recorder pointing to eight 
hundred feet. Some tigerish instinct surged up, 
and urged her to lay soft white hands on the 
brown neck so close and hurl them both to utter 
destruction — it would be so easy! She shud- 
dered and sat back. 

Presently her eyes began to wander curiously 
over the different fittings around her. She 
wondered vaguely why the revolution counter 
by Bunny’s side was tied on so carelessly with 
string. Then there was the engine switch on 
the strut at her left, with the clamp that held it 
in its place half undone on one side. It didn’t 
look as if it mattered. Why, she could press 
it herself, and then what would happen? — luck- 
ily for them both she didn’t experiment — Then 
there were Bunny’s shoes hanging over in space 
on the rudder bar in front, beautifully polished 
shoes. Just then, Bunny put up his hand and 
scratched his ear. She laughed. How matter 


The Distant Drum 


105 

of fact everything was, up there, after all. She 
noticed the quick instinctive movements of his 
right hand on the control lever which were in- 
stantly answered by the elevating plane stretched 
away in front of them. He was levelling the 
machine out on to an even keel. They seemed to 
be barely moving over the field below, but this 
Yvonne knew, from the unabated fierceness of 
the blast, must be the effect of the height 
She looked down again and was astonished at 
the different aspect of everything. Her sense of 
proportion was absolutely upset. The wings of 
the aeroplane seemed to have grown to an enor- 
mous size, and the world below to be quite un- 
important and trivial. Round the absurd row 
of hangars that would hardly house a decent 
sized dog in the world she had once lived on — 
years ago now — the crowd had evidently been 
replaced by a swarm of multi-coloured ants. 
Along the edge of the field a toy train bent its 
puny efforts to keep level with them as they 
floated imperially above. She noticed a tiny 
puff of white from the engine. It was a whis- 
tle, she knew, but no sound came up to her. 
What a wonderful new world it was, she 


106 The Distant Drum 

thought, secure in her perch in the heavens. 
There was no fear in her mind. It was impos- 
sible that anything could happen to her stately 
ship. 

A sharp nudge from Bunny brought her back 
to realities. He motioned downwards with his 
left hand and then placed it on the switch. 

The engine stopped. 

For a fraction of a second a silence, vast, 
numbing, after the friendly, half-forgotten roar, 
closed round her. Then the world below tilted 
up on end and, spinning madly, a panic-stricken 
jumble of kaleidoscopic colour, flung itself at 
her. One agonised moment of unfathomed ter- 
ror, then her mind cleared and she found herself 
thinking quite calmly. Something had gone 
wrong. How long would it be before the 
crash? This meant death, of course — mutila- 
tion. . . . She had read about it. She won- 
dered vaguely what she would look like when 
she was picked up. And St. John had her hat. 
. . . But yet the machine seemed all right. It 
was the earth that had gone wrong in some ex- 
traordinary fashion. How big everything was 
getting. 


The Distant Drum 


107 


Suddenly the confused medley ahead of the 
elevator resolved itself into a solid wall of green 
and rushed straight at her face. She closed her 
eyes. 

“By Jove, Thorne’s getting quite good at 
those spirals, if he doesn’t overdo it. That was 
a good landing, too.” St. John linked his arm 
in Dick Bywaters’ and they strolled across to 
meet the biplane quietly bumping its way to a 
standstill. As they reached the machine, Bunny 
was helping Yvonne to the ground. 

“Oh, that was wonderful! — Great!” she 
exclaimed breathlessly, her eyes shining 
with excitement, “but that last bit coming 
down took my breath away. But don’t 
look at me. My hair must be in a terrible 
state.” 

They all disobeyed her as she put her hands 
up to her head. 

“Can’t you leave it as it is, Mrs. Sebastin?” 
Bunny burst out unexpectedly. 

She replied with a little grimace. 

“Here’s your hat, Mrs. Sebastin. I hope I 
haven’t hurt it. I’m not used to these things,” 
St. John lied, unblushingly. 


io8 The Distant Drum 

“Let’s go and have tea. It must be getting 
quite late,” Yvonne suggested. 

They all laughed. 

“How long do you think you’ve been up?” 
said Bywaters joyfully. 

“Oh, I don’t know. Have I said something 
foolish? It seems to be hours.” 

“Just about ten minutes,” said Bunny. “But 
we might as well have tea.” 

St. John excused himself and the others made 
their way to the tea tent. 

“Oh-h! I’m only just getting my breath 
back.” Yvonne settled herself comfortably in a 
low wicker chair under the pink and white 
striped awning. “You’ll take me up again, 
won’t you, Mr. Thorne?” 

Bunny had relapsed into his meditative 
mood. “Certainly, if you wish it.” He ordered 
tea. 

Bywaters stopped the white-aproned waiter 
as he was hurrying away. “Can I get some- 
thing to drink?” he said in a hoarse whisper. 

“Yessir. Ginger ale — lemonade.” 

Bywaters paled visibly. “What do you 
mean?” 


The Distant Drum 


109 


“Don’t be an ass, Dick,” Bunny admonished 
him. “Tea’s better for little boys.” 

“That’s all very well for you, but I’ve been 
on the ground sucking up the dust. I’m not a 
bally eagle, you know.” 

“Never mind, Mr. Bywaters, better to be a 
lively grasshopper than a sulky eagle.” Yvonne 
turned her chair a little towards him. “Where’s 
your friend, Mr. Reid? What mischief have 
you two been up to the last few days?” 

“I don’t see much of him now,” Dick replied 
resignedly. “He’s crazy about Mamie Max- 
well. He’s always out with her.” 

“Mamie Maxwell! Who’s she?” 

“Oh, she’s in The Perfect Lady. By the 
way, she told us she once knew someone who 
knew you in California.” 

“Oh, really,” Yvonne said without interest. 
“I don’t remember the name. Perhaps she was 
mistaken. I don’t know anyone on the stage.” 

A loud humming noise was wafted in from 
the far end of the sheds. Bunny roused himself. 
“There’s St. John starting off on his Nieuport. 
You’d like to see him, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Sebas- 
tin?” he said quietly. 


iio The Distant Drum 

“Oh, yes, I must see that. We can come back 
to tea.” 

A monoplane, with a big fish-like body had 
just leaped off the ground by the far end of the 
shed and was tearing round the field. It shot 
past them with a murderous rush, and terrifying 
screech from its hundred horse power engine. 

“That’s a wicked-looking thing, isn’t it, 
Bunny?” exclaimed Bywaters. 

“Yes. Wants some handling, too. Clever 
fellow, St. John. It’s the first time he’s flown 
one of them. He’s off across country now.” 

They watched it mounting higher and higher 
in the distance and went back to the tea-table. 

“I say, Bunny, will you be able to run me over 
to Huntington later? I promised to join 
Bobby and Mamie there at dinner,” said By- 
waters. 

“Well, I’m going to take Mrs. Sebastin to 
her—” 

“You needn’t mind about me, Mr. Thorne. 
I can easily telephone for my own car,” Yvonne 
interrupted stiffly. 

“Oh, no, Mrs. Sebastin, certainly not, please.” 
Bunny hesitated a moment and then bent ear- 


The Distant Drum hi 

nestly towards her. “I’m afraid I haven’t been 
very entertaining to-day, but I’ve been worried 
over something. Forgive me, will you?” He 
went on more lightly, before she had time to 
reply. “I tell you what we might do. Shall 
we both take Bywaters to Huntington, and then, 
if you’ve nothing better to do, you might dine 
with me either there or anywhere else you like* 
Would you care to do that?” 

While he was speaking, an anxious, rather 
strained look had come over Yvonne’s face. 
She looked down, playing with the tassel of her 
sunshade. 

Bywaters broke in enthusiastically. “Good 
man! That’s a splendid idea! If you’ve got 
the blues, Mrs, Sebastin’s the very person to 
cheer you up. Besides, I’m a bad walker, and 
it’s twenty miles to Huntington, isn’t it?” 

Yvonne laughed involuntarily. “That set- 
tles it, then,” she said. “We mustn’t disappoint 
you, Mr. Bywaters. But you’ll have to sit on 
the step, you know.” 

“I’d rather sit on the radiator cap than walk. 
It’s one of my few joys of life to squeeze in on 
a racing car, isn’t it, Bunny?” 


1 12 The Distant' Drum 

“Oh, he doesn’t worry about anything like 
that,” Bunny explained with a laugh. “The 
Surrey police at home could tell a few tale 9 
about you, couldn’t they, Dick? Let’s make a 
move now, shall we?” 

They went off to the Hangar. Bunny went 
inside to give a few directions to his mechan- 
ics. 

“I’ve a Horrible presentiment that I’m going 
to be made to start the engine, Mrs. Sebastin,” 
said Bywaters desperately. “I don’t suppose 
you’ve ever started up a Hundred and twenty 
horse power Mercedes, but — well, it doesn’t 
agree with me.” He went on confidentially, 
“if you wouldn’t mind getting in, I can fix my- 
self on the step, then perhaps he’ll forget to ask 
me.” 

Yvonne did as she was asked, with much 
amusement. She had quite regained her good 
spirits. When Bunny came back, Bywaters 
was sitting on the step with an innocent far- 
away expression on his good-looking face. 
Bunny stood and looked at him with a twinkle 
in his eye. 


The Distant Drum 


”3 

“Dick!” No answer. Dick’s gaze was fixed 
on the far end of the field. 

“Dick!” A little louder this time. 

“Oh, hullo, Bunny, old boy!” with an exag- 
gerated start. “Do you see St. John coming in 
over there?” he finished glibly. 

Thorne climbed into the driving seat without 
a word, and leant back, whistling. Bywaters 
resumed his careful study of St. John’s mono- 
plane now just in sight. There was a pause. 
Yvonne was apparently sobbing behind her 
handkerchief. 

“Dick, would you mind starting up the en- 
gine now that I’m in?” Bunny said with terri- 
ble distinctness. 

“Eh? Oh, certainly!” Bywaters walked 
with studied nonchalance to the front of the car, 
carefully avoiding their eyes. As he bent down 
to grasp the starting handle, whistling an al- 
leged tune out of The Perfect Lady , Yvonne’s 
handkerchief betrayed her and she burst into an 
hysterical peal of laughter. Bywaters looked 
up innocently, caught Thorne’s eye, and made 
a noble effort to keep his face straight. The 


1 14 The Distant Drum 

muscles of his mouth twitched spasmodically 
for a moment, then giving a wild yell of laugh- 
ter, he swooped down on the starting handle, 
and gave a desperate heave. 

“Go on, you old devil 1 ” he shouted. “Let 
her rip 1” 

He leapt for the step as Bunny shot off with 
a thunderous din of exhaust, and for the whole 
of the twenty miles to Huntington even Bywa- 
ters’ remarkable appetite for speed was satiated. 
He had reason to remember some of those cor- 
ners for many a day. 


CHAPTER IX 


U\\T HAT an amusing couple those boys 
* * are! They don’t seem to have a care in 
the world.’’ Yvonne was lazily sipping her 
coffee a couple of hours later, and watching 
Bobby’s little party at the opposite end of the 
'terrace, overlooking Huntington Bay. 

“Yes, Mrs. Sebastin; they have their own 
philosophy and I’m not sure sometimes it isn’t 
a good one,” Bunny replied. 

“But it’s a narrow philosophy, surely, that 
only takes into account a world of Mamies and 
motor cars? It doesn’t ‘give one to think’ very 
much, does it?” 

“No, but do they want to think? Do any of 
us want to if it comes to that? One’s thoughts 
are apt to be poor company sometimes.” 
Bunny looked down from the terrace abstract- 
edly to where a bather was dangling his legs 
over the edge of the diving stage in the calm 
bay, and watched him vaguely as with careless 

IX 5 


1 1 6 The Distant Drum 

grace he stood up, poised for a moment with 
arms outstretched and his body fired with the 
redness of the setting sun, then slowly swayed 
forward to meet the warm water. He looked 
back at Yvonne quickly. Her eyes were trou- 
bled as she leant forward on the table, chin in 
the palm of her hand. 

“But come, beautiful lady, we mustn’t get 
serious,” forcing a light tone. “Let’s eat, drink 
and be merry like the others. After all, in their 
way they’re happy with their Mamie; in my 
way I’m happy with my — with you. Now,” 
he added quickly, “you must drink up that 
liqueur. I insist on it.” 

Yvonne glanced wonderingly at him. 
“You’re absurd to-night, Mr. Thorne. Shall 
we go? I’m feeling rather chilly, and this 
place bores me to-day.” She pushed back her 
chair impatiently, and rose. 

“I hope I haven’t said anything to annoy you, 
Mrs. Sebastin.” 

She avoided his eyes. “Oh, no, no, but — but 
I want to have a chat with you to-night — will 
you drive me home now?” 

“Certainly,” he replied. “I’ll go and fetcK 


The Distant Drum 117 

the car, and meet you at the entrance.” Thorne 
dropped his light-hearted manner the moment 
Yvonne left him. He realised that he was not 
looking forward to taking her home. It was 
only natural that Yvonne should be going to 
question him; and this was bound to mean an 
explanation which it would be very difficult — 
impossible — for him to give her. He had 
made no attempt to conceal his feeling for her 
during the past few weeks, a feeling which was 
growing with intensity at every meeting; and 
Yvonne was not the woman, if he read her 
aright, to ignore his sudden change of front to- 
day. He would have been disappointed in her 
if she did ignore it, and yet, what excuse had 
he to offer? he asked himself. None, none that 
he could offer Yvonne certainly. Had he even 
one that he could offer himself beyond this vague 
feeling of disquiet that had resulted from Dela- 
motte’s idle words yesterday. And yet what 
had they amounted to? That he should not 
spend too much time with Yvonne — that she 
was merely playing with him — and that she was 
not his type of woman and — that was all! 

Not his type of woman! Bunny laughed 


The Distant Drum 


118 

satirically. He had never wanted a type, 
that was the very reason why Yvonne so ap- 
pealed to him. She belonged to no type. She 
was herself, exquisite and imperious. And yet 
he felt he could not rid himself of the effect of 
Delamotte’s hint. In spite of the seemingly 
casual manner in which the subject had been 
broached, he knew that Delamotte was a man 
who never gossiped, and when he did open his 
mouth about anyone, his lightest word was 
bound to carry weight. Bunny knew, there- 
fore, that he could not afford to ignore his warn- 
ing completely, whatever his own convictions 
might be. It was with these conflicting feel- 
ings that he met Yvonne and assisted her into 
the car. 

“Hadn’t I better find you something warmer 
than your dust-coat if you’re feeling chilly?” he 
asked her solicitously. 

Yvonne declined his offer with haste. “No, 
no, thank you. Fm quite ready.” 

“Shall I want the headlights, Mrs. Sebastin?” 

“I don’t think so. It’s only eight o’clock. It 
won’t be dark till we get there. But you 
haven’t tucked me in properly!” Yvonne 


The Distant Drum 


1 19 

looked down with a pout at her little French 
shoes. “Don’t be afraid of me, you great big 
man.” 

“Oh, but I am — sometimes.” Bunny walked 
round to her and settled the rug about her feet. 

Twilight was creeping in from the Sound 
and blurring the vivid summer green of the 
lanes into sombre greys and blacks as they drove 
quietly home. For the first few miles Thorne 
waited for her to speak. Then he turned. 

“What do you wish to say to me?” he said 
gently. 

Yvonne stirred and laid a hand softly on his 
arm. “Don’t let’s talk now,” she said wistfully. 
“I’m enjoying it all so!” 

Some hint of pathos in the attitude of her 
figure as she sat huddled up close beside him, 
with face averted, moved Bunny to pat her hand 
protectively. At once she slipped it away. 
Feeling ashamed of his unusual display of emo- 
tion, he left her to her thoughts. It was grow- 
ing rapidly dark, and by the time he turned in 
at her gates he had difficulty in following the 
mazy wanderings of the drive. 

As they arrived at the porch, Yvonne slipped 


120 


The Distant Drum 


quickly (Jut of her rug. “You’ll come in, won’t 
you, Mr. Thorne?” she said over her shoulder, 
and hurried into the house without waiting for 
a reply. 

Bunny followed her into the lounge. She 
threw off her wrap and he caught an impression 
of strong emotion in the pallor of her face, be- 
fore she turned aside with a weary gesture to 
the piano, and stood with her back to him, 
nervously handling the loose leaves of music. 

The brave poise of Yvonne’s head just failed 
to conceal a pitiable distress which was incom- 
prehensible to Bunny. He could hardly im- 
agine that he was responsible for it, yet it was 
a guilty feeling that prompted him to break the 
tension. 

“I’m terribly sorry to see you upset, Mrs. Se- 
bastin. What can I do?” 

“You’d hardly understand,” she began in a 
low voice. “It’s just silliness on my part. You 
— you’ve been unkind to me to-day, and I sup- 
pose I’m not used to it.” She laughed nerv- 
ously. “I’ve always been spoilt — till I met 
you. That’s about all, I think.” 

“That’s not all, you know it isn’t,” Thorne 


The Distant Drum 121 

said, with determination. “I’m fearfully angry 
with myself for being a bear, but — oh, hang it! 
— what did you want to say to me to-night? 
I’m worried about you.” 

“Nothing, only — just that!” The words 
came faintly. Yvonne was tearing a sheet of 
music into long, neat strips. 

Bunny thought a moment, Delamotte’s words 
drumming in his brain. “Playing with you — 
playing with you!” Could she be playing with 
him now? If he could only see her face — 
“Mrs. Sebastin, listen to me. We both know 
that’s not true. Now, I’m a very determined 
devil when the fit takes me, and to-night I’m 
more than usually obstinate. I’m not going 
from here till you do tell me.” 

At the note of command in his voice, Yvonne 
swung round quickly, one hand clutching at the 
piano. “You dare — ” she began. 

Bunny smiled impudently into her indignant 
eyes. They wavered a moment and dropped. 

“You — you dare to speak to me like that,” 
she faltered. 

“Yes, just like that! I’m going to help you 
out whether you like it or not. Now, Mrs. Se- 


122 


The Distant Drum 


bastin,” he changed his tone and spoke very gen- 
tly, “sit down and tell me all about it. You 
may be able to clear my mind a bit, too. I’ve 
an idea we may both be up against the same 
thing.” He pushed an easy chair towards her, 
and Yvonne sank into it. She felt weak and 
overwrought. She told herself mechanically 
that this man had heard something, that he was 
weighing her up, that even at that moment he 
might be thinking that she was acting a part. 
In that case — well, the world she had been 
building up for herself the last few weeks must 
inevitably fall to pieces. It was so unfair — so 
desperately cruel! She almost moaned aloud 
as a blank, despairing self-pity swept her mind. 
And yet she must hear it from his own lips, there 
must be no shirking. But how? She must 
force herself to say something. 

“Tell me, Mrs. Sebastin, I am waiting,” 
Bunny’s level voice broke in. 

Yvonne nerved herself to look at him. He 
was busy lighting a cigarette, sitting on the edge 
of the table, with one foot swinging negligently 
off the ground. She took a breath and started 
recklessly. “Oh, it’s only about to-day— your 


The Distant Drum 


1 23 


manner. You’ve been so charming to me since 
I’ve known you, and I’ve — I’ve appreciated it 
very much, more than you can possibly have 
any idea of, and then — well, we’re neither of us 
children, are we? I hardly know what I want 
to say, but — what has changed you? If it is the 
work of any of my kind friends, it’s only fair to 
tell me, isn’t it?” 

' Thorne smoked deliberately for a few long 
seconds, then his bronzed face frowned heavily, 
and he rose to his feet, viciously crushing his 
cigarette end against a little billiken tray on 
the table. “Mrs. Sebastin, I’ve got to make a 
very abject apology to you,” he said, “and I 
don’t expect you to forgive me. You’ve hit the 
right nail on the head. A remark was made to 
me, and like an utter cad I allowed myself to 
be influenced by it.” He spread out his hands 
with a gesture of finality. “That’s not exactly 
correct, either, but I did what was just as bad, 
I listened to it. I’ve nothing to say, except that 
I’m sorry. I’ve made a hopeless mess of what 
might have been” — he pulled himself up ab- 
ruptly. 

“Wait a moment,” Yvonne said hurriedly. 


124 


The Distant Drum 


“Mr. Thorne, I don’t blame you. You’re a 
stranger here, and you can’t know very much 
about me. It’s impossible for you to under- 
stand the extent of New York gossip. It’s dif- 
ferent for us. We know what it is worth, but 
you’re bound to be influenced by it.” 

“That’s no excuse. You know that,” he mut- 
tered disgustedly. 

Yvonne disregarded this interruption. “I 
appreciate your feelings about it, but there’s no 
reason why it should make any difference be- 
tween you and me — unless you want it to. But 
at the same time, Mr. Thorne, I think it’s due 
to me to let me know exactly what was said, 
and who said it, so that I may clear myself.” 

“It isn’t a question of your clearing yourself, 
but I will tell you. I was told by a man who 
knew that I was very much — well, interested in 
you — it will sound ridiculous, of course — that 
you were only amusing yourself with me: play- 
ing with me was the exact expression, I believe.” 
He laughed grimly. “For reasons of my own 
it rather stung me. And the man was Dela- 
motte.” 

“Delamotte! — Ralph I” Yvonne lay back in 


The Distant Drum 


125 


her chair and laughed hysterically. “Oh, Mr. 
Thorne, you’re a great big over-grown school- 
boy!” she gasped. “But I like you for it.” She 
leant forward in her chair with mock solemnity. 
“Tell me, you foolish one, have you heard of a 
celebrated monster with green eyes, that goes 
about the world making trouble?” 

“Do you mean to say — ” 

“Why, Ralph’s been crazy about me for 
years! Everybody knows that. I shall have to 
talk to him severely if he is getting so foolish.” 

“Good Lord!” Thorne exclaimed bewil- 
dered. “I never dreamed of that. But it’s 
hardly playing the game, is it?” 

“Love is proverbially an excuse for trickiness, 
Mr. Thorne. But seriously, though, Ralph’s a 
dear old thing, and we’re awfully good friends. 
I shouldn’t like him to think I was laughing at 
him. Don’t say anything to him about it.” 

“That doesn’t alter the fact that I had no 
business to listen to him,” Bunny said. 

“Oh, don’t be stupid. Let’s forget all about 
it.” Yvonne smiled and rising from her chair, 
went to the piano. “Sit down, and I’ll play to 
you.” 


126 


The Distant Drum 


She dashed impetuously into a few bars of a 
lilting two-step. Bunny leant over the back of 
a chair and watched her face, as she carelessly 
skipped from one tune to another — from grave 
to gay — from Pagliacci to The Pink Lady. 
There was still an unnatural tense look about the 
grey eyes, betraying some emotional stress that 
was inwardly agitating her. For a savage mo- 
ment, remorse at the wound he had dealt bit 
him, and he looked away. Then to his amaze- 
ment a vicious exultation surged through him, 
and he was glad that he had the power to hurt 
her. What a blackguard he was! Damn the 
music — He tried to dwell on the quiet coun- 
try rambles over Long Island, on her charming 
confidences, on all the lights and shades of this 
cool, stately goddess of his — and failed. 

His eyes sought Yvonne for inspiration, and 
found it. She was looking out through the 
open French windows, her shoulders sensuously 
following the mad music of the “Danse des 
Apaches.” 

Goddess! Who wanted a visionary goddess! 
He wanted her — this warm, live thing — this 
glorious, untamed creature of human clay. And 


The Distant Drum 


127 

by heaven, he would have her — and break her 
— kill her if necessary. . . . 

“What do you think of this — Bunny?” 
Yvonne was smiling up at him. 

“I — I think you’re — lovely!” Bunny said in 
a low, strained voice. 

“Ah!” She rose abruptly on a crashing 
chord, and swung fiercely round to face him, 
erect, magnificent in her arrogance of beauty. 
“Lovely!” her voice rang scornfully. “Of 
course I’m lovely! Look at me! I don’t want 
that — from you! I’ve — I knew it years ago. 
Is that all you can say to me?” 

“My God! No — ” Bunny strode towards 
her deliberately, holding out his arms. “You’re 
— 'wonderful!” 


CHAPTER X 


B OBBY REID’S valet, known officially as 
William, but to his intimates as “Skunk” 
from a propensity for using scent when off duty, 
came out on to the front porch of the cottage 
at Garden City, smoked a cigarette leisurely in 
the hot sunshine, and went inside to lay break- 
fast. The time was 1.30. 

An aggrieved voice came from the kitchen. 
“Is Mr. Thorne cornin’ in for ’is lunch, Skunk?” 

This being one of the regularly recurring 
periods when the little household found itself 
without a cook, William’s colleague was trying 
to wash up and improvise breakfast for two and 
lunch for one at the same time. 

“I dunno, Charles. ’E said so when ’e went 
out But like as not there’ll be a ’phone 
through from Mrs. Sebastin’s house.” 

Charles’s reply was inaudible. 

“’Ome again at ’arf past five, this morning, 
our two was, damnin’ everything as per usual, 
damnin’ me,” William continued lugubriously. 

128 


The Distant Drum 


129 


“Oh, what a life!” He hummed softly to him- 
self for a few minutes. “’Ere, Charles, what 
do you think’s the latest game upstairs? Plug- 
gin’ mosquiters with a golf club! The 
bloomin’ walls look like a battlefield. Young 
Bobby ’e says it takes off from the bare look of 
the room. Says when ’e wakes up ’e takes ’em 
for roses on the wallpaper. Roses!” disgust- 
edly, “I don't think!” 

“What’s the programme to-day, Skunk?” came 
through the open kitchen door. 

“Gawd knows! Same as usual, I s’pose. 
Get up when they feel like it, telephone jingle- 
jangling all the afternoon. ‘Ho! It’s Miss 
Maxwell. Would you please ask Mr. Bywaters 
if I can use ’is ortomobile this afternoon,’ and 
‘Is Mr. Thorne at ’ome? Say Mrs. Sebastin 
wants ’em.’ Ho! I wish I ’ad ’is luck. She’s 
the real thing.” 

“Yes, no chorus girl touch about ’er. Can’t 
we take one or two like that ’ome for our- 
selves?” 

“William!” Bobby Reid appeared at the 
top of the stairs in a well-thought-out scheme of 
silk pyjamas. “Bath and put my clothes out. 


130 The Distant Drum 

“Yes, sir. Which will you have to-day?” 

“Flannels — grey flannels, lavender socks and 
tie.” 

“Very well, sir. Breakfast’s ready now, sir. 
Shall I bring it up?” 

“No, we’ll come down. Serve it now.” 
Bobby went across the landing to break the news 
to Dick. 

“Starters for the first race, Charles,” Wil- 
liam called out philosophically. It was soon 
evident to William that something was in the 
air. So great was the preoccupation of his two 
pyjama-clad charges that afternoon at breakfast, 
that his neglect to hand the coffee on the right 
side — a daily lapse that resulted with depressing 
regularity in his instant dismissal, passed with- 
out comment. After his interest had been 
aroused by a few elaborately obscure remarks 
he was reluctantly compelled to obey an unmis- 
takable jerk of the head from his master, and 
he slid out of the room. 

“Well, Dick, what are we going to do about 
it?” Bobby dug into his cantaloup with un- 
usual seriousness. 

“Can’t do anything except tell him what 


The Distant Drum 


I 3 I 

Mamie says. I don’t know what to say. Per- 
sonally I think she’s a jolly good sort.” 

“So do I, old boy, but then Mamie’s no object 
in saying a thing like that unless she thinks it’s 
true. After all, Yvonne’s a bit of a mystery, 
isn’t she?” 

“Oh, I don’t agree with you, Bobby. We 
don’t know much about anybody over here, if it 
comes to that. Anyhow Bunny’s not a man to 
be driven to drink,” Dick said with conviction. 

“No, he’s not.” Bobby mused over his ome- 
lette. “Still,” he continued, “I think we ought 
to say something to him. It’s easy enough to 
see he’s crazy about her.” 

“I suppose you’re right. We’d better get it 
over directly he comes in. But I don’t like the 
job. I’ll toss you for it.” 

Dick instinctively felt for his pocket and 
raised his voice. 

“William!” 

William appeared at the door. “Yes, sir!” 

“Have you got a quarter on you?” 

William had. “Will one be enough, sir?” 

“It will be if it’s got a head on it. Give it a 
spin,” Dick said. 


132 


The Distant Drum 


Bobby’s fancy for a tail was unfortunate. 
“H’m! That’s rotten luck,” he said discon- 
certedly as William disappeared. “What have 
I got to say, then?” 

“Oh, that’s easy enough, Bobby. You’ve 
only got to tell him that you’ve heard Yvonne is 
an awful woman who drove her husband to 
drink, and then pushed him into a lunatic asy- 
lum. Bunny won’t mind. He may kill you; 
on the other hand he may not. You never know 
your luck.” 

“Don’t be a damned fool, Dick. I’m per- 
fectly serious about it. He’s a pal of ours, and 
I’m going to carry it through, whether he likes 
it or not.” 

“Sorry! Joking apart, from what we know 
of her, I bet it was the man’s own fault, what- 
ever happened to him. Now for it. There he 
is.” 

As they heard Bunny’s car skid to a standstill 
and the engine die away with' a deafening bang, 
they resumed their breakfast with studied un- 
concern. 

“What’s the matter, William?” They heard 
Thorne’s good-humoured voice in the garden. 


The Distant Drum 133 

William’s reply was apparently private and 
confidential. 

“Oh, I see!” There was a pause before 
Thorne opened the door. 

“Hullo, you lazy devils!” he exclaimed. 
“I’ll teach you to have breakfast at lunch-time. 
Come right in, Yvonne!” 

Yvonne fussed daintily into the room with a 
little joyous laugh. “Oh you, Bobby!” she 
cried. 

The two gaudy conspirators sat petrified as 
this miracle of fragrant freshness stood and 
dared them with teasing eyes. Then adapting 
themselves to the occasion, with a presence of 
mind which turns beings of ordinary clay into 
heroes in a single second, they rose simultane- 
ously. 

“Good morning, Mrs. Sebastin,” said 
Dick easily. “What are you doing out so 
early?” 

“Early, you awful creatures ! Why I was up at 
seven this morning, having a swim. And don’t 
you dare to call me Mrs. Sebastin again. I’m 
always telling you about it. Oh, don’t run 
away,” she went on imploringly as they made a 


The Distant Drum 


134 

flanking movement for the door. “I came in 
to have lunch with you. Besides, those are such 
pretty colours.’’ 

“Yes, you’d better not dress till after lunch,” 
Thorne said banteringly. “I’ve got a surprise 
for you to-day that may influence you in the 
matter of clothes.” 

“In that case we’ll go and get into dressing 
gowns, if you’ll excuse us.” They bolted up- 
stairs, re-appearing in still more fearsome col- 
ours. 

“Enter the famous Chinese jugglers,” com- 
mented Bunny, heartlessly. “Never mind. 
You’ll do. Now, then, what about food? 
William!” He called out. “What have you 
got to eat?” he asked as that individual ap- 
peared. William reassured him as to the raw 
material, but seemed to have little faith in 
Charles’s ability to turn it into the finished 
article. 

“Oh, Bunny, do let me go and help!” Yvonne 
broke in rapturously. “I’m quite a good cook, 
really.” She turned to William. “Would 
Charles mind, do you think?” 

Charles would be very pleased, if William 


The Distant Drum 


135 


might say so. Yvonne swept off to the kitchen, 
threatening them with dire consequences if she 
was disturbed. 

Bobby and Dick looked at one another sheep- 
ishly. 

“What’s your surprise, Bunny, old man?” 
Bobby asked. But Bunny gave them to under- 
stand that wild aeroplanes would not drag it 
from him before lunch and sauntered off to the 
window, whistling contentedly. 

Dick gave a meaning cough. “Perhaps that 
business will keep for a bit, Bobby. What do 
you think?” 

“Look here, I want to weigh it up again. I 
can’t help thinking we’re making a mistake. In 
any case it’ll keep till to-morrow.” 

Thorne moved from the window and Bobby 
raised his voice. 

“To-morrow! Much too fine to-day!” 

“What on earth are you two muttering 
about?” 

“Socks!” Bunny looked amazed. “Mend- 
ing socks,” Bobby concluded glibly. 

Thorne’s remarks regarding the effects of the 
sun on weak intellects were interrupted. 


136 


The Distant Drum 


“Bobby! Dick!” An imperious voice came 
from the kitchen. 

They found Yvonne radiant amongst the pots 
and pans assisted by her two admiring lieuten- 
ants, her expensively, simple pink frock pro- 
tected by one of Charles’s aprons. “Come and 
wash up and make yourselves useful,” she or- 
dered. “And don’t break anything if you dare. 
I’m going to give you a wonderful lunch.” 

“I’ve only just had breakfast, but I couldn’t 
refuse anything if you cook it,” Bobby began, 
gallantly flourishing a wet soup tureen. He 
stopped and picked up the pieces with an air of 
discouragement under Yvonne’s scathing eye. 

William, completely under her spell, began 
to give hitherto unpublished details of his past 
life much to Charles’s ill-concealed amusement. 
He broke off to enter a mild protest to the jug- 
glers in the corner that the plates upon which 
they were industriously engaged were “all right, 
sir — they’d only just been washed.” 

“There!” Yvonne turned round with a 
flushed happy face. “Fish cutlets, salad, isn’t 
that clever of me?” She discarded her apron 
and drove her brood before her info the front 


The Distant Drum 


137 


room. Shaking the roses in her big hat severely 
at Dick, she sat down at the table. “How many 
did they smash, Bunny?” she asked. 

“Total bag was a soup tureen, two plates and 
three glasses.” 

“Well, there are plenty more where they 
came from, I suppose. Wish you’d come in 
and cook every day, Mrs. Seb — Yvonne,” said 
Bobby cheerfully. 

“By the way, Bobby, can I have your chauf- 
feur for an hour this afternoon?” asked Bunny. 
“I want the Mercedes got ready for a few days’ 
trip.” 

“Of course you can. So that’s your surprise, 
eh? For heaven’s sake don’t go and leave us 
here alone. I say, Yvonne, can’t you stop 
him?” 

“I’m afraid not.” Yvonne’s eyes were rather 
misty as she looked up at Bobby. “You see — 
well, I’m going, too.” 

“Look here, my lads,” Thorne broke in ab- 
ruptly. “To cut a long story short, Yvonne’s 
going to be foolish enough to marry me — to- 
night!” 

“Oh, er — yes, of course — ” Dick passed a 


The Distant Drum 


138 

hand distractedly across his forehead. “Say 
that again, old man, I didn’t quite get it.” 

But before Bunny had time to get very far 
with his repetition, Bobby and Dick had re- 
covered from their surprise. With one accord 
they pushed back their chairs and went to 
Bunny. 

“Congratulate you heartily, Bunny. If it 
ever comes to my turn, I’ll be content with half 
your luck,” Bobby said simply and sincerely. 

“Same here, old boy.” Dick gripped Bun- 
ny’s hand fiercely, and looked across at Yvonne. 
She was drawing little nervous patterns on the 
tablecloth with her fork. “Yvonne, I hope 
you’ll both be terribly happy. Damn it, I’ve 
fallen in love with you myself, to-day!” 

There was a knock at the door and William 
entered with a large bunch of roses. He 
cleared his throat as they all stared at him in 
surprise. “Excuse me, ma’am, but Charles 
sends his respects, and takes the liberty of ask- 
ing you to accept these flowers, as you are — 
that is, in case — ” he floundered in hopeless em- 
barrassment. 

Yvonne rose, and taking them from him, shook 


The Distant Drum 


139 


his hand impulsively. “Oh, William, that’s 
perfectly sweet of you both. Tell Charles — tell 
Charles — ” she broke off and the tears rushed to 
her eyes. 

“Very well, ma’am, thank you.” William 
made a hurried exit. 

“Now, then, Bobby, what about the cham- 
pagne?” Thorne said, taking charge of the sit- 
uation. “I suppose there’s none left. Take the 
car and run down to the hotel and get some, will 
you?” 

“All right,” replied Bobby, moving towards 
the door. “I say, Yvonne, you shouldn’t have 
laughed at William. You’ve hurt his feel- 
ings.” 

A rainbow broke through the mist in her 
eyes and the little summer shower was over. 
“Oh, Bobby, you’re hopeless! I couldn’t help 
being stupid. Everybody has been so — so rip- 
ping! There, that’s an English word for you.” 

“Well, you’d better get used to them,” said 
Bunny darkly. “You’ll be an Englishwoman 
yourself, in a few hours.” 

Yvonne made a little grimace at him. “I’m 
going to drive Bobby myself for that. Come 


140 The Distant Drum 

along, Bobby!” She seized him by the hand, 
and they dashed out down the path. 

“By Jove, Bunny, this is a surprise,” said 
Dick, as Yvonne disappeared down the road be- 
hind the big steering wheel. “You sly old devil 
to keep it so dark!” 

“Didn’t know it myself, until this morning,” 
said Bunny, filling his pipe. “I asked Yvonne 
a fortnight ago, but she wouldn’t fix it up unless 
it could be done quietly. She’s arranged for 
us to be tied up to-night at half past seven at 
some parson’s place over in Jersey City. I’m 
jolly glad. I don’t want a lot of stuff in the 
papers.” 

“Any of her people going to turn up?” asked 
Dick. 

“Brother and sister-in-law, that’s all. I met 
’em a few days ago. Her father and mother 
are in Europe. Look here, Dick, you two have 
got to come and see me through.” 

“You bet your life we will,” Dick said em- 
phatically. “Where are you going after- 
wards?” 

“Atlantic City for a few days, then we’re 
coming back to the North Shore. You two 


The Distant Drum 


141 

have got to chuck the cottage and come to us as 
long as you stay over here. We may be going 
back to England about the same time.” Thorne 
turned towards the door. “I’m going to tell 
William about the packing now. I’ll be back 
in a minute.’’ 

“I must go and jump into some clothes,” Dick 
started with sudden recollection. “Great 
Scott! Bunny, are you aware that Yvonne is 
tearing about the roads with Bobby in a dress- 
ing gown and pyjamas?” 

“So she is!” Bunny chuckled. “Well, 
everybody is a bit crazy to-day. I daresay 
Yvonne’s reputation will survive it for once. 
She’ll have to buy the bubbly, though.” 

They went upstairs. 

Silence fell on the room. The stale rays of 
the afternoon sun slanted beams of golden dust 
across the table, where the marauding flies hov- 
ered over their indecent feast. A faint drone 
came lazily in from the flying ground a few 
hundred yards away. Upstairs Thorne’s lug- 
gage groaned a dull protest as it was dragged 
from its lair, and Dick whistled monotonously 
the refrain of “Everybody’s doing it.” 


142 The Distant Drum 

Presently Dick walked across the landing 
and lounged against the door of Thorne’s room 
with his hands in his pockets. “Those two 
seem to be a dickens of a time,” he remarked. 

Bunny looked up with his knee on a suitcase. 
“I expect they’ve eloped. Just my luck! 
Bobby hinted at it before they left.” He got 
up and relit his pipe. “Let’s walk down the 
road and see if we can find any clues. William, 
you can look after the rest, can’t you?” 

They sauntered out of the house, and along 
the scorching road. As they turned into the 
wide avenue, at the end of which the big red 
brick hotel was barely visible through the trees 
half a mile away, they came upon an effective 
little tableau in the middle of the road. 
Bobby was standing by the side of a large tour- 
ing car, containing a quiet family party, and he 
was evidently getting the worst of an argument 
with an infuriated elderly gentleman sitting 
next to the driver. The ample folds of Bob- 
by’s Chinese robe, with its wide flowing sleeves 
lent picturesque but unconvincing colour to his 
story. Bunny halted in their tracks fascinated. 

“I’m nothing of the sort, sir,” Bobby was ex- 


The Distant Drum 


x 43 

plaining with dignity. “I’m an English gen- 
tleman in distress — in great distress. I have 
been waiting here for — for days, starving, for 
gasoline — ” 

“Do you eat it?” shrieked the old gentleman. 

“You misunderstand me, sir.” He indicated 
a pink dot far down the road with an airy wave 
of his sleeve. “I and my wife, a very beautiful 
woman, who is sitting by yon tree — ” 

As the car shot away, the recipient of these 
harrowing confidences was understood to make 
some incoherent reference to a bug-house. 
Bobby turned on his heel with resignation, and 
a broad grin spread over his face as he saw the 
others. “There’s a bad-tempered old sinner, 
Bunny. That’s the fourth I’ve stopped. 
They’ve all been like that. Have you brought 
any petrol?” 

Bunny and Dick cursed him between their 
sobs and led him back to his deserted spouse. 

“You’ve managed to catch him, then,” 
Yvonne said. “What about the gasoline?” 

“Never mind that now, child. We’ve waited 
long enough for this drink.” Bunny took one 
of the bottles of Cordon Rouge from the foot* 


144 The Distant Drum 

board of the disconsolate-looking grey Merce- 
des. 

“I’m sorry there’s no glass for you, Yvonne. 
But I can’t be expected to think of everything,” 
Bobby said virtuously. “Hurry up with that 
cork, Bunny.” 

“Oh, you’re all too ridiculous!” Yvonne 
laughed happily. “We can’t drink champagne 
here.” 

“Don’t you interrupt, madam. I was al- 
ways brought up to the belief that little ladies 
and gentlemen could drink champagne any- 
where,” reproved Bobby. “Now, try and smile 
while I think of a toast.” He knitted his brows 
deeply while the hilarious trio seated them- 
selves on the grassy border of the road. 

“Oh, well — here’s — here’s to a jolly good 
time, and all that, and” — he looked at Dick 
meaningly, “ — to the socks that don’t want mend- 
ing.” 


PART II 


CHAPTER I 

WrpHANK Heaven !” Betty Fawle 
drummed her pretty heels vigorously on 
the floor of the taxi. “Another five minutes and 
I should have screamed! Dear people, those 
Van Pleydens, but oh, how dull! Surely, 
Bunny, one can be virtuous without dining at 
places like the Cafe de l’Espagne — and two 
hours tramping round the Poultry Show!” 
She abandoned herself to the dingy comfort of 
the cushions with a sigh of relief. 

“Pm sure I’ve a lot to apologise for,” replied 
Bunny remorsefully. “Van Heyden’s a man 
I’ve got to keep in with, for business reasons, 
but I didn’t mean to let you in for it, like that. 
You behaved beautifully.” 

“Don’t worry about that, Bunny. I don’t 
mind a bit, really. But I’m rather annoyed 
with Yvonne for backing out at the last min- 
ute. She knows I gave up a dinner at the 


145 


The Distant Drum 


146 

Blitz because I thought she was coming. 
What on earth is the matter with the stupid 
woman?” 

“It’s not her fault, Betty.” Bunny looked 
worried. “She’s been seedy on and off for some 
weeks now. Her nerves seem to be all out of 
order. The poor old girl was in bed when I 
got home to dress.” 

Betty Fawle gave a gesture of impatience. 
“Nerves? Rubbish! She’s no business to 
know anything about nerves. She imagines 
she’s got them. You mustn’t let her do it.” 

Bunny was silent. She looked at him curi- 
ously. “You’re not looking any too well your- 
self, Bunny. You’ve got quite thin since you 
came back from Europe.” 

Thorne forced a laugh. “There’s nothing 
the matter with me. You’re imagining things 
yourself now, Betty.” 

“Look here,” Betty continued, “you and I 
are pals, and we’re both Britishers in a very 
strange country, only I happen to have been 
here for some years, and I know my lady 
Yvonne pretty well. I’m going to ask you 
plainly: is there anything wrong?” 


The Distant Drum 


H7 

“Lord, no! Only IVe been a little anxious 
about her health, that’s all.” 

The cab turned into Fifth Avenue. “Would 
you like some supper?” Bunny asked. 

“No, thanks, I’m rather tired after that ex- 
hibition. I don’t think I shall ever be able to 
look a chicken in the beak again. Old Van 
Heyden must have thought I intended starting 
a poultry farm in my kitchen, he took such pains 
to show me everything. I suppose he meant 
very well, poor old thing.” 

“The old lady’s taken quite a fancy to you, 
too,” remarked Bunny. “She was talking again 
about your likeness to Yvonne.” 

Betty laughed. “I suppose, in your eyes, 
that’s the greatest compliment she could pay me. 
However, I’ve got used to that comparison.” 

“It’s noticeable enough, certainly,” Bunny 
looked at her. “You have the same features, the 
same figure and apparently the same dress- 
maker. The only difference that I can see is in 
your walk.” 

“Ah, you’ve noticed that, have you? That’s 
funny.” 

“Why?” 


The Distant Drum 


148 

“Well, I don’t know, but it’s always seemed 
to me there’s something very characteristic about 
the way Yvonne comes into a room. Still, per- 
haps it’s my imagination.” Betty sat up ab- 
ruptly. “Here we are, Bunny. Will you come 
in for a whisky and soda?” Bunny opened the 
door as the taxi stopped outside a large new 
block of apartments near the park. “Not to- 
night, thanks. I want to get back and see if 
Yvonne’s all right. I’ll send her round to make 
her apologies to-morrow if you’ll be in. Good 
night, Betty.” 

As Thorne drove on a grey, chilling fog of 
uneasiness that had been hanging over his mind 
of late settled down relentlessly, distorting the 
clear-cut outlines of his saner judgment into 
weird phantoms of uncertainty. He pulled out 
his cigarette case and opened and shut it aim- 
lessly. What right had Betty Fawle to take that 
tone about Yvonne, he thought, however well she 
might think she understood her? How the 
devil could she turn out to-night if she was ill 
in bed? Poor old Yvonne, she certainly had 
been having a bad time lately with those 
wretched nerves of hers. Whatever ’did Betty 


The Distant Drum 


149 


mean by suggesting it wasn’t nerves? — unless she 
thought Yvonne was shamming. And why 
should she be shamming? — unless — suppose she 
were out when he got home! He shifted sud- 
denly in his seat and let down the window with 
a vicious tug at the strap. “Bunny, my boy,” 
he said aloud, “you’re becoming a drivelling 
idiot.” 

He took a cigarette from his case and struck 
a light. The spasmodic dance of the flame, 
as he held it up, arrested his attention. With 
a persistent effort of will power he gradu- 
ally controlled his nerves until the match burnt 
steadily, and then cursed himself heartily for 
a morbid fool. Betty was talking through her 
hat, he assured himself. How these women 
loved to make mischief about nothing. 
Yvonne’s attacks lately that had resulted in such 
irritability were naturally enough induced by 
her worrying over her money troubles. But 
there was nothing really wrong — nothing. 
Nevertheless, he wished the driver would put 
a little more ginger into his work. He put his 
head out of the window and voiced this feeling 
with some emphasis. 


i5o 


The Distant Drum 


As he entered the hall of his house in East 
Fortieth Street, a clock struck twelve. Bunny 
went straight up-stairs and quietly opened the 
door of his wife’s bedroom. The light was out 
and he was on the point of retreating noise- 
lessly to avoid disturbing her, when the still 
black menace of the room made him pause and 
stare for some moments at the pall of darkness 
enshrouding her bed. He knew the room was 
empty. Turning on his heel he felt his way to 
the head of the stairs. 

“Ballard!” he shouted. “Where is Mrs. 
Thorne?” Barely waiting for a reply he called 
out again. A door opened on the floor above. 

“I don’t know where she has gone, sir, but I 
heard her use the telephone and go out five min- 
utes ago.” 

“Very well!” replied Bunny curtly. 

The humid air of a stifling New York sum- 
mer night hung about the house and intensified 
the feeling of foreboding which possessed him 
as he stood there, sending his brain racing dis- 
tractedly to find a way out of the maze of sus- 
pense and doubt. Those few sentences which 
had floated over to him in the dining room of 


The Distant Drum 


IS* 

the Club last week flashed across his memory 
again, striking his tired brain with the loud in- 
sistency of an alarm clock. He had long ago 
reasoned out that that was utterly absurd. It 
couldn’t have been his wife that little Joe Ste- 
vens was discussing. The whole thing was due 
to this confounded depression that had gripped 
him so hopelessly these last few weeks. 

It was high time that he got into a different 
frame of mind, or — Bunny roused himself sud- 
denly, and stumbling into his wife’s bedroom, 
pressed the switch. A single rose-shaded globe 
over the dressing table sprang to life over 
Yvonne’s portrait in its plain silver frame stand- 
ing in the midst of the dainty monogrammed de- 
bris of her toilet. A portrait of a lovely woman, 
surely, and yet to-night he seemed to see a mock- 
ing smile in those wonderful eyes. Something 
faintly elusive, something a little cruel, some- 
thing one might almost expect to find if she were 
the sort of woman that little cad Stevens was 
talking about. 

It was ridiculous, he argued, but he must 
get rid of that portrait. Not that he believed 
that he saw anything unusual in it, but — well, 


152 


The Distant Drum 


all their friends agreed it was a bad likeness. 
He would drive her to Marceau’s in the morn- 
ing and have some new ones taken. He must 
take her away to Long Island where she was 
always happy. Away — anywhere away from 
that damned house. — Ah, that was itl He 
stood staring vaguely at her portrait wondering 
at the idea. It was the house that always de- 
pressed him. And yet somehow he knew he had 
had this feeling all along — a feeling as of a 
shadow stalking him through the rooms, even 
this rose and grey nest of hers. A change would 
do them both good — a few weeks away from the 
house. Suddenly with amazement he realised 
he was afraid — what on earth, he asked himself, 
could he be afraid of? He looked at her por- 
trait again. The little cruel smile he had never 
noticed until that evening became accentuated, 
and over her face had come an expression al- 
most devilish in its seductiveness. 

Then, like a flash of light piercing the fog, 
realisation came to him, realisation of what he 
had never dared to admit to himself all these 
months since his marriage — he was afraid of 
Yvonne, afraid of the possibilities in that beau- 


The Distant Drum 


153 


tiful form which he had worshipped ever since 
he had met her a year ago. Bunny could not 
understand his feelings. He tried to thrust it 
all away from him, and to remember only the 
wonderful days before their marriage — and 
after; but the little red flames of suspicion 
that he knew n‘ow had been licking at him 
these last few weeks burst out into a fire that 
consumed his brain and maddened him. He 
fought with it, arguing desperately with him- 
self. What was this nameless harm that could 
be in her? It was only the phantasy of a wor- 
ried brain, a horror that must be wrestled with 
and strangled before he saw her again, or else 
he must lose her utterly. She must never see 
that he could suspect her of anything, even the 
littlest of the sins. 

Suddenly, imperatively, a bell rang below. 
Bunny sprang up, his hands gripping the edge 
of the dressing table. His haggard face stared 
at him out of the glass behind Yvonne’s por- 
trait. He moved slowly backwards to the door, 
fumbled for the switch and snapped the light 
off. Again the bell rang. Bunny felt better 
now that the sinister influence of the portrait 


*54 


The Distant Drum 


was blotted out. He cursed himself again and 
made a desperate effort to rid himself of the 
dread that shook him — the dread that the face 
he had seen in Yvonne’s portrait might be the 
true one, the real explanation of many things 
hitherto a mystery to him. 

Groping his way down the stairs he opened 
the door to his wife. 


CHAPTER II 



‘VONNE swept inside, and waited for him 


to close the door. “Well!” she said de- 
fiantly. 

“Didn’t you take your latchkey with you?” 
Thorne inquired. 

Yvonne betrayed some surprise at this unex- 
pected question, but she replied without hesita- 
tion. “Yes, but I lost it outside. Why do you 


ask?” 


Thorne started in amazement at an utterly for- 
eign tone that had crept into her voice, a note of 
coarseness, almost brutality. 

“Is it too much trouble for you to let me in?” 
Yvonne continued, moving towards the stairs. 

“That’s not the way to talk to me, Yvonne. 
Please come in here a minute.” Bunny mo- 
tioned her into the dining room. “Kindly tell 
me where you’ve been to-night.” He faced her 
firmly, his hand on the door knob. 

“Don’t take the trouble to bully me, because 


155 


156 The Distant Drum 

I’m not going to tell you. It’s no business of 
yours.” 

a This sort of thing won’t do, Yvonne,” he said 
curtly. “Answer my question.” 

Yvonne eyed him insolently. “Oh, well, if it 
will amuse you, I’ll tell you.” She leant an arm 
carelessly on the mantelpiece and played with a 
string of pearls around her throat. “Directly 
you went out I telephoned to a man I know very 
well, and asked him to take me out to dinner.” 
She smiled retrospectively. “He didn’t want very 
much persuading. He took me back to his 
apartment afterwards — to show me some 
French prints he had just got over from Eu- 
rope; then we went to supper at a quiet little 
place down-town, and — here I am. I spent such 
an amusing evening. Quite a change.” 

“Oh, I see!” Thorne was thoughtfully ex- 
amining her rather white face. Then, “Sit 
down, Yvonne, won’t you?” he asked solicit- 
ously. “I want to have a chat with you.” 

“No, I won’t. I’ve nothing to say to you.” 
The coarse note was back again. 

“Sit down when I tell you!” Bunny thundered 
at her with sudden violence. 


The Distant Drum 


X S7 


Yvonne obeyed him quickly. 

“I beg your pardon,” her husband went on 
more calmly, “but I don’t understand you to- 
night. I haven’t seen you like this before. 
What’s the matter?” 

“Matter?” Her face was taking on an ex- 
pression perilously like the one he had read into 
her portrait. “Nothing. But you didn’t sup- 
pose I was going to sit at home all the evening, 
while you amused yourself with Betty? As if 
I couldn’t see the whole affair was a put-up job.” 

“Don’t be a fool, Yvonne, and don’t use slang. 
It doesn’t suit you. Don’t you remember tell- 
ing me that you were too ill to go out and that 
I spent half an hour trying to persuade you to 
come? I offered to stay with you myself, but 
you wouldn’t hear of it. Come, be reasonable.” 

“Don’t flatter yourself I care whether you go 
out with Betty or not!” Yvonne sneered. “Go 
and live with her altogether if she’ll let you. 
She probably would.” 

“It’s a good thing Betty can’t hear you, 
Yvonne. I don’t fancy she would stand much 
of that sort of rubbish.” 

“Oh, I know she’s everything that’s — ” 


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158 

“Stop that, please, and listen to me,” Thorne 
interrupted harshly. “Now, I happen to know 
that you only went out about five minutes be- 
fore I came in, and that little story of yours 
was, I suppose, invented for my benefit. I ex- 
pect you telephoned to Betty and found out that 
I’d just left her. Isn’t that so?” 

Yvonne made an effort to appear at ease, but 
her mortification was plainly evident. “Utter 
rubbish!” she said. “Do you think I should 
take the trouble to dress myself, just to play a 
trick on you?” 

“I can’t see why you should, but there it is. 
And the taxi that you were supposed to have 
come home in, where did that disappear to so 
quickly? You mustn’t take me for a fool.” 
Then with an impulse of tenderness he went up 
to her. “Yvonne, dear, don’t spoil yourself with 
these confounded childish tricks — ” 

Yvonne turned on him viciously. “Get away 
from me, you — ” She flung a foul epithet at 
Bunny and rushed to the door. He seized her 
arm roughly. “That’s enough!” he rapped 
out. “You’re forgetting yourself. Before you 
go to bed, I want you to understand this. I’m 


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159 


very much in love with you, but I don’t like this 
new manner of yours, and I don’t intend to see 
any more of it.” 

She laughed defiantly. “And if this new 
manner of mine, as you call it, pleases me, then 
what?” 

He faced her squarely. “Then what? Then 
I shall break you of it, that’s all.” 

“Oh!” Yvonne eyed him again, and paused, 
then she turned towards the door. “I’ve noth- 
ing more to say.” Her face was hard and im- 
placable. 

Bunny stood aside, with a shrug of his shoul- 
ders, as she left the room, and making her way 
listlessly up the stairs, called for her maid. A 
few moments later Bunny heard the key turn in 
her door. 

“God! Does she think that necessary — to- 
night,” he muttered stung into savage misery by 
her callousness. 

He went to his own room wondering cynically 
if that evening were to mark a tragic beginning 
of the end, or merely the conventional end of 
the beginning. His ideals, he supposed, had, 
all things considered, been a little impossible. 


160 The Distant Drum 

Perhaps an osprey suited Yvonne better than a 
halo. 

Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Thorne’s seven months 
of married life had not been without its vicissi- 
tudes. Bunny had started off gaily enough with 
an assured income of a thousand pounds a year 
of his own, with the determination and capabil- 
ity of adding thereto in some way or another. 
He had also understood more or less vaguely 
from Yvonne that she had ample means derived 
from trust securities. “Enough to dress myself 
on,” as she had once lightly but comprehen- 
sively expressed it. In strict justice to Bunny, 
it must be recorded that at the time of their 
marriage he had taken little notice of the 
amount of deference paid her by her bank man- 
ager. The study of so glorious a woman as 
Yvonne precluded any desire to usurp the un- 
interesting duties of an accountant. However, 
such a remark from one of the smartest women 
in New York — and therefore in the world — 
hinted at an income that might have been any- 
thing from ten thousand dollars upwards, with- 
out reckoning upon such incidental expenses as 
her two houses and her automobiles. 


The Distant Drum 161 

It was under these favourable auspices that 
they had wandered back hand in hand from 
their honeymoon, and had begun to set their 
house in order before leaving for a trip to Eu- 
rope. 

A few days before they had been due to sail 
on the Mauretania came the first cloud to break 
the clear blue of their sky. Yvonne approached 
Bunny at the breakfast table with a penitent face 
and a long list of figures. 

“Bunny, dear, look at these. I’ve got to tell 
you. I seem to have got in a muddle with my 
money.” 

“These” had turned out to be a rather ap- 
palling collection of hoary headed debts. 
Yvonne was apologetic, but she couldn’t pay 
them. She explained that she had paid off as 
many as she could, and could settle them all out 
of her next quarter’s money in a month’s time. 

“The worst of it is, Bunny. I must leave five 
thousand dollars before we sail. What can I do 
about it?” 

Bunny had pulled a wry face at the figure, but 
being very much in love had told her not to 
worry. He could just manage it, but it would 


The Distant Drum 


162 

nearly clear him out. Upon Yvonne’s assur- 
ance that they could just manage to get along for 
a month, Bunny had found the cash. This de- 
lightfully simple arrangement of Yvonne’s, how- 
ever, was doomed to disaster. For quarter day 
had presented her, not with the necessary draft, 
but a tersely worded cable signed “father,” to 
the effect that he, as guardian of her trust fund, 
had been compelled to hold up her money till 
certain of her difficulties had been met, and ad- 
vising her to return at once. This cable had 
found them while they were on a visit to Bunny’s 
people in Worcestershire. Yvonne had no ex- 
planation to offer beyond the obvious, but not 
very helpful one that she must have forgotten 
something. 

Bunny, having by this time experienced sev- 
eral ingenuous examples of her ideas of high 
finance, was not entirely surprised. The state 
of her bank account was always as complete 
a mystery to Yvonne as the water supply of 
her bathroom, and, unfortunately, she insisted 
on treating the one as being as inexhaustible as 
the other. Bunny recalled gloomily one occa- 
sion when this theory had resulted in a polite 


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163 

reminder from those in authority that she was 
overdrawn thirty dollars. Yvonne, in attempting 
to check this statement, had succeeded after an 
hour’s pencil sucking, in stupefying even her- 
self with the discovery of some two hundred 
thousand dollars to her credit. She had never 
thoroughly accepted Bunny’s painstaking expla- 
nation that the totals on the debit side of each 
page of her pass-book should not be added in 
as separate items, especially as she had accepted 
unreservedly the bank’s totals for the credit 
side! 

Bunny had immediately decided that the 
cable in question must be another consequence 
of his wife’s genius for figures. Whatever the 
reason, it had put him in the humiliating posi- 
tion of having to approach his father for a sub- 
stantial advance, while their plans for wintering 
at Adelboden had to give way to the necessity of 
an immediate return to New York. 

During the voyage Yvonne had been very ret- 
icent about the whole affair, but just before dock- 
ing she became hurriedly confidential, and told 
Bunny that it would be better for him not to 
approach her father at all. She frankly con- 


The Distant Drum 


164 

fessed that he was a man of very peculiar ideas, 
that he had been violently opposed to her marry- 
ing an Englishman, and that, in short, he would 
not recognise any relationship. Bunny’s pro- 
test had been met with an agitated assurance 
that his interference would do her infinitely 
more harm than good. So he had rather irri- 
tably agreed to leave her affairs to her own ten- 
der mercies. 

Bunny’s first move after they had settled down 
in her house in Fortieth Street had been to con- 
sider the question of bringing some grist to the 
mill. His Farman biplane was still stored 
down on Long Island, and he came to the con- 
clusion that the quickest way would be to turn 
his knowledge of flying to account. He soon 
found that it was fairly easy to obtain contracts 
— of a kind. There was quite a lot of money 
to be made by such acrobatic tricks as flying 
through the subway, or delivering a packet of 
tea to the top of the Metropolitan building for 
a leading dry goods store. But to obtain an 
agreement that did not ingeniously provide for 
sudden death for the “party of the second part,” 
was another story altogether. However, he had 


The Distant Drum 165 

found a transient fame quite unexpectedly. 
Happening to fly, one fine evening, a few miles 
out of the aerodrome with Yvonne, his engine 
stopped and he made an involuntary landing in 
the grounds of the President of the Toothpick 
trust. The great man asked them to stop and 
share his modest meal, and the next day a highly 
imaginative account of this harmless little epi- 
sode appeared in a leading newspaper under 
the headlines : “To DEATH— OR DINNER PARTY.” 

Soon after this Bunny obtained the first of a 
series of quite remunerative engagements which 
brought an occasional welcome cheque to the 
household in Fortieth Street. 

Yvonne’s reports at this time of her financial 
transactions had not been encouraging and, a 
month after their return, she delivered the final 
verdict that her father refused to release the 
money and she couldn’t touch a cent of it for 
months. Bunny had assured her that it didn’t 
matter, that she was the sweetest woman in the 
world, and — would she like to dine at the Blitz 
and finish up at Jules Cartin’s? 

They had been a happy enough couple then, 
going their own unfettered way as the days 


The Distant Drum 


1 66 

drew in at the fierce bite of winter, seeking little 
company beyond that of Ralph Delamotte and 
a few chosen spirits; at times of affluence plung- 
ing intothe feverish hurly-burly of the City, 
at others dropping quietly away in their battered 
Mercedes to roam the deserted lanes of the North 
Shore. They had many ups and downs of for- 
tune during the winter. Yvonne’s long-forgot- 
ten debts seemed to have a knack of obtruding 
themselves just when Bunny was congratulating 
himself that he was beginning to attain some 
measure of prosperity. 

Then there came a time when he first no- 
ticed a mysterious change coming over her. She 
began to have unaccountable fits of moody ab- 
straction. For two or three days at a time, she 
seemed to avoid his company. There were oc- 
casions, too, when he found her out in lies — * 
petty little lies about nothing in particular, but 
worrying, nevertheless. But always, just when 
he was on the point of taking up the matter seri- 
ously with her, she would suddenly fuss round 
him again more fascinatingly than ever. Bunny 
had been frankly puzzled, but he thought he 


The Distant Drum 167 

had found an explanation when her nerves be- 
gan to give way. It must be her money affairs, 
of course. 

Starting with mere occasional fits of irrita- 
bility, these attacks grew rapidly more serious 
until they culminated in the hysterical prostra- 
tion from which she was suffering when he had 
left her, to go to the Van Heyden’s dinner party. 

This occasion of their first serious split, how- 
ever, seemed to be the storm to clear the do- 
mestic atmosphere, for the next morning, the 
sun of Yvonne’s rare charm was shining in its 
old glory. She flitted about the house for the 
following few weeks, cunningly contriving lit- 
tle schemes to please Bunny; at one time settling 
herself down industriously to sew cretonne cov- 
ers for the furniture, at another affording him 
endless amusement by some wild effort at econ- 
omy, until the black memory of the night, and 
the fantastic revelation of her portrait became 
banished to the shadowy recesses of his mind. 

But even then he had a vague premonition 
that some intangible influence was working in 
Yvonne that he would have to fight and master 


The Distant Drum 


1 68 

before very long. To be exact, it was a month 
later that the conflict started in earnest with a 
blow that sent him reeling. 


CHAPTER III 


66 A MR. THORNE to see you, sir.” 

^ ^ Charles Willsher turned from the 
window of his office, overlooking Fifth Ave- 
nue. A tall, neatly dressed, strong-looking man 
of fifty years of age, there was a careworn look 
stamped on his straight, firm features, about his 
stern blue eyes, that told of some restrained sor- 
row in his quiet, well-ordered existence. He 
was the treasurer of a reputable real estate cor- 
poration, the head of a comfortable, unassum- 
ing household, a keen student of auction bridge 
in his spare time, and — the father of Yvonne. 

“Mr. Thorne?” he repeated interrogatively. 
“Oh, yes, of course. Ask him to come in.” 

Bunny was astonished at the cordiality of his 
reception. “Thank you, sir, I’m very well,” he 
replied. “I must apologise for intruding upon 
you, as I understand that — well, you’re not very 
favourably disposed towards me.” 

Willsher was looking mildly surprised. 

1 69 


The Distant Drum 


170 

“Nothing of the sort, Mr. Thorne,” he replied. 
“I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance. 
Sit down.” 

Bunny did so. “But, sir — ” He paused with 
a perplexed frown. “Well, what I came about, 
Mr. Willsher, was Yvonne — her health. She’s 
been very upset lately, and I thought it best to 
come straight to you, and discuss the whole mat- 
ter. I should, of course, have called on you 
when we were married, if you had not been in 
Europe.” 

“Europe?” Willsher exclaimed. “I’ve never 
been to Europe in my life.” 

Bunny’s forehead wrinkled again. “I must 
have made a mistake, then,” he said quietly. 
“But it doesn’t matter. I took the liberty of 
coming to see you now principally about 
Yvonne’s money affairs. To-day she is quite 
broken down again, evidently through worrying 
about them, so I thought it best to come to you. 
I haven’t taken this course, before, because I 
promised Yvonne not to, rather foolishly, but 
now — ” 

“Quite so, Mr. Thorne,” Willsher interrupted 
with quiet emphasis, “but I’m afraid I can’t help 


The Distant Drum 


171 

you very much. I know nothing whatever 
about Yvonne’s affairs. She never consults me 
about them; in fact I never see her.” 

“But what about her trust fund, Mr. Will- 
sher?” Thorne began incredulously. “I under- 
stand you act as her guardian.” 

Willsher shook his head patiently. “I wasn’t 
aware that she had any trust fund. If she has, 
I should be the last person to act for her in any 
way.” 

Bunny looked dazed. “But I saw a cable you 
sent her when we were in Europe,” he persisted. 

“Now, see here, Mr. Thorne, I probably un- 
derstand this better than you do, I’m sorry to 
say. In the first place I never sent any cable 
— I didn’t even know she was in Europe — sec- 
ondly, I’ve only seen her once in the last two 
years, and that was a few months ago when she 
came in to tell me that she’d married you.” The 
lines of haunting anxiety on Willsher’s face were 
accentuated as he continued with bitter resigna- 
tion. “I suppose it’s another little game of 
hers. I’m sorry for you, my boy.” He got up 
and began to pace the room slowly. “Lies — 
lies — nothing but lies! I don’t know what’s the 


172 


The Distant Drum 


matter with that daughter of mine. She’s been 
a trouble to us for the last five or six years, and 
she’s nearly broken her mother’s heart. My 
other children are steady enough, but — well, it 
puzzles me, Mr. Thorne.” He raised his hand 
with a gesture of utter weariness and dropped 
it limply to his side, as he faced his son-in-law. 

Bunny drew himself up sharply. “I can’t 
doubt your word, sir, but there must be a bad 
mistake somewhere. I’ve found Yvonne every- 
thing that I could wish for. If you could come 
round with me to Fortieth Street — ” 

“No, no, my boy; I’m sorry. Don’t ask me,” 
Willsher replied hastily. “Nothing I could do 
or say to Yvonne would have the slightest ef- 
fect. It’s a hard thing to have to say, but I had 
to wash my hands of her long ago. I don’t wish 
to say any more, but — be careful.” 

“I’m sorry you’ve reason to speak of Yvonne 
like that, Mr. Willsher. At any rate, if it’s 
any consolation to you, you can rely on me 
to do my utmost to protect her from any 
trouble. She’s very dear to me, you must 
understand.” 

“Ah, yes, I’m sure of that — I’m sure of that. 


The Distant Drum 


173 

Well,” the older man’s emotion was very near 
the surface, “I hope things will go well with 
you both. J ust one word of advice, Mr. Thorne. 
Be firm with her. She’s got a mean temper 
sometimes. You look as if you could be on 
occasion. Good-bye, my boy. Come in and see 
me whenever you like. I’ll be glad to see you.” 
He wrung Bunny’s hand roughly and turned 
back to his desk. 

Bunny drove straight back to Fortieth Street. 

An hour later Yvonne came upon him smok- 
ing furiously in his study. Her mouth was a 
thin, straight line. 

“So you’ve been to my father?” 

“Yes.” He looked up quietly. “I hadn’t in- 
tended to tell you, though.” 

; “You can’t do those dirty, underhanded tricks 
without me finding you out, you fool. I saw 
your car at the door of his office. You great 
boob, taking your troubles round to him! He’s 
got no use for you! You’re only making a fool 
of yourself! You’re a fine pair! Well, are you 
satisfied?” 

“No, I’m not,” he said unmoved. “Lies are 
never very satisfactory. And I’m going to 


174 The Distant Drum 

break you of it. Do you understand? Break 
you 1” 

“Lies’!” Yvonne spoke with cold, deadly sig- 
nificance. “Yes, I did lie to you. I had my 
own reasons for it. But since you’re so fond 
of the truth, you shall have it. I don’t care what 
you know now. I had that cable sent myself 
when we were in England, because I wanted to 
get back to New York — to New York,” she re- 
peated. “There’s another little confession that 
may interest you. I told you a few days ago 
I’d borrowed a thousand dollars from my 
mother, the night you went to Boston to fly. 
Well, you probably know now I didn’t get it 
from her — I haven’t seen her for two years. I 
got it for nothing — from a man! Not quite for 
nothing, either. I had to stop at his apartment 
all night — do you understand? That happens 
to be the truth, this time !” 


CHAPTER IV 


F OUR days later Betty Fawle was sun- 
ning herself in Central Park, in joyous pos- 
session of the second pannier gown to arrive 
in New York from the Rue de la Paix. Per- 
haps it was the consciousness of being one of 
the very few women designed by Nature to walk 
in one of these inventions without looking ridic- 
ulous that tempted Betty to stop her car and 
take a stroll on the footpath. 

In her less palmy days — some eight years be- 
fore — this innate trick of dress had caused a 
far-seeing New York dressmaker touring Eu- 
rope for fresh ideas to lure Betty from a Lon- 
don shop to his laboratory in the Avenue. 
Betty’s taste quickly made her the darling of 
his capricious customers, and her ability soon 
enabled her to be sending home useful drafts 
to a weary little mother at Putney. To Betty, at 
the flood of her success, had come a pleasant 
young man of much wealth, whom she had 
175 


The Distant Drum 


176 

loved and married. After a riotous year of hap- 
piness a sudden attack of double pneumonia had 
left her a widow — twenty-three and inconsola- 
ble. Since that time her good looks and dollars 
had brought Betty many admirers. In some of 
these she had been sufficiently interested to con- 
vert them by the strength of her personality into 
staunch friends. 

But lately Betty’s thoughts had been running 
rather persistently on one man — one of the few, 
incidentally, who had never shown any signs of 
making love to her. As she walked through 
the Park that afternoon, tranquilly sniffing 
the warm summer air, her little firm chin 
proudly tilted, she came upon him striding 
towards her. 

“Why, Ralph!” she exclaimed, beaming. 
“This is delightful. But what brings you out 
here? I thought the Park was woman’s shrine 
in the afternoon.” 

Delamotte looked heartily pleased to see her. 
“I am but an aimless worshipper, Betty. Will 
you be the divinity to shape my end for an hour 
or two?” 

Betty laughed. “I was brought up as a milli- 


The Distant Drum 


1 77 

ner, not a manicurist, Ralph. But I’d love to 
have tea with you, if that’s what you mean.” 

“That’s the idea, Betty. Say, how about run- 
ning out into the country somewhere?” 

“Yes, that would be nice. Where shall we 
go? Oh, I knowl If you’ve got time, Ralph, 
we might run down to Garden City and see the 
flying. My old Panhard’s waiting round the 
corner.” 

“Good enough!” Ralph replied promptly. 
They turned and stepped out briskly. “Bunny 
Thorne will be down there, too. By the way, 
Betty, you’re the second original soul I’ve met 
this afternoon.” 

“Ah, Ralph, then I have a rival,” Betty said 
brightly. 

“Impossible! It was a mere man. A cer- 
tain friend of Bunny, by name Robert Archi- 
bald McCurrach Reid. I don’t think you met 
him when he was over last year.” 

“I should hope not, indeed!” Betty shivered. 
“What’s he like? It doesn’t sound promising.” 

Ralph smiled reminiscently. “No, he’s a dull 
dog.” 

They reached Betty’s car. He handed her in 


The Distant Drum 


i 7 8 

and, directing the chauffeur to the aerodrome, 
settled himself beside her contentedly. “Ah! 
This is good, Betty !” 

The car sped away out of the park, across the 
Queensborough Bridge on to the main road, 
Betty chattering energetically. 

“Have you seen the Thornes lately?” Dela- 
motte asked at length. 

“Only occasionally.” Betty grew contempla- 
tive. “What do you think of that couple?” 

“Oh, as to that — ” Delamotte paused. 
“Thorne’s a very nice fellow, isn’t he?” 

“He’s terribly fond of her, too.” Betty 
turned to him and laid a hand on his arm. “Oh, 
I do hope it’s all right! I can say that to you, 
Ralph. You know I’m not a gossip. But I’m 
afraid — ” 

“Well, to be frank, so I am. Although, mind 
you, Betty, she was in love with him when she 
married him. Probably is now — in her own 
sweet way.” 

“Yes, but you know what that way means with 
Yvonne,” Betty interrupted. 

“I don’t know what to think. She’s always 
seemed different with him, I thought it was 


The Distant Drum 179 

going to be a good thing at first. But have you 
noticed anything wrong?” 

“Heavens, yes! Long ago. She’s started 
those everlasting tricks of hers. It’s beginning 
to have the usual result — even on Bunny. You 
remember Sebastin?” 

“Oh, yes, Betty, I remember lots of things. 
But I’m very mad about it this time. I’d have 
sworn she wouldn’t have got away with it with 
Bunny.” 

“Well, Ralph, I think it’s a shame. I don’t 
understand it,” Betty replied. 

Ralph looked at her troubled face very seri- 
ously. “No, you wouldn’t, Betty.” He paused 
a moment. “I’m very glad you can’t under- 
stand it. It’s not the sort of thing one cares to 
think of in your gentle presence.” Betty’s eyes 
turned to meet his, amazed. He went on softly. 
“It’s out of your kingdom.” 

They sat silent and thoughtful through a mile 
of the ragged, inglorious country-side until 
Betty began to speak of other things. 

Bunny’s aeroplane was standing close to the 
ropes as they sauntered into the aerodrome. 


i8o 


The Distant Drum 


They found Yvonne and Bobby close beside it. 
She greeted them charmingly. 

“Bunny’s having a busy time with passengers 
to-day, Betty. Oh, let me present Mr. Reid to 
you. Mr. Reid — Mrs. Fawle.” 

Bobby bowed quietly. He was looking rather 
subdued. 

“How do you do?” Betty said graciously. 
“Are you the Mr. Reid?” 

Bobby swelled visibly. “Oh, well — er — ” 

“I beg your pardon. That was rather rude 
of me” — Betty smiled mischievously, taking an 
instant liking to his fair, open countenance — 
“but Mr. Delamotte led me to believe that you 
were an elderly Scotchman with a red beard.” 

A chill ran down Ralph’s spine at the exceed- 
ing sweetness of Bobby’s smile. 

Bunny came out of his shed and lounged to- 
wards them. “Hullo, Betty,” he said wearily. 

Yvonne glanced quickly at him and suggested 
tea. 

“Why, Bunny, what’s the matter?” Betty 
began. 

“How are you?” Delamotte interrupted, 


The Distant Drum 181 

going up to Bunny quickly. “I suppose you’ve 
finished flying for the day? Good idea of 
yours, Yvonne, we’ll all go and have tea.” 

“Not for me,” Bunny said roughly. “I’m go- 
ing up again in a minute.” He turned away 
to the machine. Yvonne went to intercept him 
while Betty shot a significant glance at Dela- 
motte. 

“Bunny, dear old thing,” pleaded Yvonne. 
“Do give yourself a rest.” 

“Go and have tea,” Bunny said over his shouh 
der. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” 

“Come along, Yvonne,” Delamotte broke in 
briskly. “I want mine badly. Bobby, are you 
looking after Mrs. Fawle?” He walked Yvonne 
off with him to the enclosure. 

Bunny was standing down by the tail of the 
biplane, fidgeting with a rudder wire, and 
watching a mechanic filling the gasoline tank 
from the pilot’s seat. 

“Don’t spill that stuff all over the plane, you 
damned fool !” he called out irritably. The me- 
chanic looked up in surprise. 

Betty, after a word with Bobby, pushed her 


182 


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way through the crowd round the machine. 
“Bunny,” she said hurriedly. “I want to speak 
to you a moment.” 

Mechanically he drew aside with her. 

“Bunny, old boy,” she continued in a low 
voice, “what’s the matter? You mustn’t go 
up like this.” She summed up his untidy ap- 
pearance with a swift glance, and searched his 
eyes for an explanation. There was a look of 
latent horror in their depths, as of a man seeing 
unnamable things crawling up to him to drag 
him down to their own pestilential haunts. 
“You mustn’t go up like this,” Betty repeated 
firmly. 

Bunny laughed uneasily. “Like what, 
Betty? You silly little soul, of course I must. 
Why not?” 

“You can’t deceive me like that. You’re not 
in a fit state for this. You ought to be in bed, 
not here.” Betty was severe. 

“Rubbish, Betty! In any case, look at all 
these passengers gasping to hand over fifty dol- 
lars.” He jerked his head towards a little 
group waiting patiently by the head of the ma- 
chine. “There’s very little one wouldn’t do for 


The Distant Drum 183 

money nowadays, you know.” His laugh 
grated on her. 

“Look here, Bunny. Make a pal of me. 
Money isn’t everything. Don’t take Yvonne so 
seriously. I know she’s hopelessly extravagant, 
but she means well. She told me a lot the night 
she stayed with me. Oh, don’t interrupt. I 
know more than you think. I’m sure she’s try- 
ing to save you worry in her own way. That’s 
the reason she borrowed that thousand dollars 
from me. I was — ” 

“Betty, tell me for God’s sake!” His voice 
was hoarse with suspense. “What night was 
that?” 

Betty glanced at him in surprise. “Why, 
about a week ago. The night you were away 
flying. Boston, wasn’t it? Didn’t you know?” 

Bunny put a shaking hand to his forehead. 
“Oh, yes, yes, of course, Betty. I — I had 
forgotten. Of course I knew she was with 
you.” 

Then Betty, watching his pallid face, under- 
stood. “Oh, Bunny, you don’t mean — that!” 

He drew himself upright with a shudder, and 
his jaw squared. “I mean nothing,” he said 


The Distant Drum 


184 

almost roughly. “Forget everything I’ve said. 
Everything! Do you understand? I wasn’t 
very fit, but I’m all right now.” He looked her 
straight in the eyes. “Now, run along with 
Bobby, there’s a good girl. They’re waiting for 
me here. Say I’ll be back in a few minutes.” 
Thorne strode back to the machine. “Now, 
then, who’s the next?” he called out. A merry, 
athletic-looking youth stepped forward. “Here 
you are, Mr. Thorne,” he said eagerly. “Jump 
up, then. Look out, don’t put your foot through 
the fabric.” Thorne climbed up after him, and 
starting the machine off across the field, jerked 
it viciously off the ground before it had got up 
sufficient speed. He had to jockey it carefully 
before starling to climb. 

The eternity of torture he had been suffering 
the last four days had given way to a smoulder- 
ing rage against his wife and all her works, far 
outweighing the relief that Betty’s words had 
given him, and as the machine rose his feverish 
throbbing brain left the control of the machine 
to the mechanical care of his right hand, and his 
feet on the rudder bar. Presently he looked 
down. Somewhere in that little patch of colour 


The Distant Drum 185 

a thousand feet below, the awning of the en- 
closure, was the woman who had done this thing 
to him, who for a touch of spite, had left him 
to the fettered darkness of those days — of a life- 
time, perhaps, but for a chance remark. He 
could see her in his mind, cheerfully chat- 
ting and pouring out tea. His wifel Good 
God! 

The knees of his passenger closely pressing 
Thorne’s sides, were trembling slightly. Bunny 
half turned his head and saw a hand tightly 
clenching the wooden upright at his side. At 
these usual signs of a nervous passenger he 
smiled slightly. What had that youth got to 
worry about? he thought. He wished fervently 
he could change places with him — with any- 
body, even with the nigger who looked after the 
sheds at night. Still, he supposed this fellow 
had had enough of it. He might as well take 
him down; and he wasn’t feeling any too well 
himself. Suddenly his head reeled under a mo- 
mentary spasm of dizziness, and his grasp on the 
control lever stiffened. He recovered sharply. 
That was nasty, he thought. He must get 
down quickly, there might be more. Keeping 


1 86 The Distant Drum 

the engine full on he pointed the elevator down 
sharply. 

A mad rush for two hundred feet, and then 
a clutching at his heart made his hand pull 
back on the elevator. The biplane straightened 
out and wallowed perilously. The sweat broke 
through the skin of his forehead and dried in- 
stantly in the rush of air. Bunny felt his 
instinctive touch had gone. He had to think it 
all out carefully. Setting his teeth, he forced 
his disobedient muscles to pull sideways on the 
lever and bring the right wing up, steadying 
the machine. His treacherous brain cleared 
again for a moment, and switching the engine 
off and on he fought his way down with parched 
mouth, till the recorder showed four hundred 
feet. Another and sharper pang of dizziness, 
and he levelled out again. 

A gust struck the machine, and the right 
wing canted high, almost throwing him out 
of his seat. Again he forced his sluggish mus- 
cles into action — just in time, and the wing 
sank again. He caught a confused impression 
of the upturned faces of the crowd running out 
of the enclosure. Grimly he thrust the machine 


The Distant Drum 


187 

down again with a rapidly weakening grip on 
the vital lever. At a hundred feet from the 
ground another gust pitched the machine side- 
ways. His brain, tightening as in a vice, strug- 
gled for command, but the mutinous muscles 
refused altogether. The pressure of the knees 
behind him suddenly ceased. 

“Sit down!” Bunny yelled. “Hang on like 
hell!” He felt as if he were speaking in a 
dream. He made a last desperate, convulsive 
effort, and this time his hand answered. He 
jammed the lever hard over to the left — too 
late. 

The left wing tilted slowly, irrevocably, until 
it towered into the blue vault. Then began an 
interminable couple of seconds. Bunny’s work 
was done. He could only watch — and he did, 
curiously. The whole world seemed hushed, 
waiting for that wing to stop climbing. It 
gradually eclipsed the yellow ball of the sun, 
and a shadow fell on his face. Below, the 
sunny green turf and the faces of the transfixed 
crowd away by the sheds staring — staring. . . . 

Then a harsh creaking from up aloft and the 
machine staggered and fell sideways in a shrill 


The Distant Drum 


whistling of air. Bunny’s left hand shot out 
helplessly on to the wooden upright, and fell on 
another’s — his passenger’s. 

“Oh, God!” he heard an agonised cry behind 
him. 

A dark mass shooting over his head, a terrific 
blow on his forehead, something warm trickling 
into his eyes, and darkness closing over him, as 
as of a mighty forest tearing itself to pieces, 
he sank slowly into the rending, crackling ruins, 

Yvonne was handing Bobby a cup of tea when 
a sharp, loud exclamation came from a pilot 
leaning over the railings. 

“Great Snakes! Look at Thorne’s machine! 
Guess he’s jammed a warping wire.” 

Yvonne dropped the cup, and rising quickly 
got to the railings first, with a little rush, as the 
crowd of idlers under the awning stirred ex- 
citedly. “Oh, Ralph, look at that!” Yvonne 
cried as the machine oscillated violently, and 
steadied itself again after its first dive. “I’m 
sure Bunny’s in trouble!” 

Ralph was watching the biplane anxiously. 
“No, he’s got it again. Ah!” as it tilted down 


The Distant Drum 189 

at an alarming angle. He turned to Betty. 
“Look after Yvonne. I’m afraid there’s going 
to be a smash.” He ran after Bobby to where 
Thorne’s mechanics were standing round his 
car, gazing upwards. 

“There’s something wrong with ’is control, 
there, sir,” said one of them slowly. “And yet 
we look those wires over every time ’e goes 
up.” 

Bobby nodded silently. 

The little group watched Thorne’s struggles 
with breathless impotence. 

Then a groan of horror broke from them all. 
They turned simultaneously to the automobile. 

The biplane hung straight up and down, 
wavered a second as if hesitating whether to 
overturn completely, and slid down with a 
scythe-like sweep until it had almost regained 
the horizontal. It struck the ground on one 
wing, reared like a great beast in its death agony, 
and collapsed in a cloud of dust. 

The big car with Bobby and Delamotte, the 
mechanics clinging on anywhere, dashed up a 
few seconds later. 

Over the half mile of grass from the enclo- 


i go The Distant Drum 

sure to the tangle of splintered struts and rent 
fabric came stringing out a heterogeneous com- 
pany of officials, spectators and mechanics, 
chilled with the cold breath of apprehension. 

Bobby rose from his knees and intercepted 
Yvonne as she stumbled out of Betty’s landau- 
lette. Half supporting her by the arm, he drew 
her aside. “He’s all right, Yvonne,” he jerked 
out. “Don’t upset yourself. He’s had a won- 
derful es’cape. Nasty smack on the head, that’s 
all. Delamotte’s looking after him. Go back 
to the enclosure with Betty.” 

She struggled faintly, her eyes drenched with 
agony — Bobby thought he had never seen them 
so lovely — “Let me go to him! Why are you 
keeping me back?” she cried. “You’re not tell- 
ing me the truth!” 

“I swear I am! Go back!” 

“Then why can’t I go?” She was staring at a 
group of men, a dozen yards away from the pile 
of debris. Sketchily between their legs she 
could make out a dark form. And a hand, a 
twisted horror — outstretched, limp. Two more 
men joined the group, and looking down bared 
their heads. 


The Distant Drum 191 

“Not that, Yvonne!” Bobby snatched her 
round. “That’s the passenger!” 

Yvonne broke away from him with a peal of 
laughter to the other group standing ankle deep 
in the wreckage. Delamotte was on one knee 
wringing out a piece of cotton waste. His 
hands were red. 

“Give that to me! It’s mine!” she cried, tear- 
ing it from him in ragged strings of crimson. 

Later, Betty drove Delamotte back to the city. 

“Well, Betty,” he said as he stepped into the 
car. “She wouldn’t have anything to do with 
me, so I’ve sent Reid back with them.” 

Betty was very quiet. “I suppose Bunny will 
be quite — quite safe with her?” she asked. 

“Oh, yes, there’s no serious damage. Slight 
concussion and some nasty cuts. What a won- 
derful escape, eh? His mechanic tells me he 
must have broken his fall by coming through 
the fabric of the top plane. We found the 
other fellow quite a distance from the machine 
— killed instantly, poor chap. His neck was 
broken. The whole thing’s a mystery, too. 
Horrible!” 

“Horrible! — and unnecessary.” 


192 The Distant Drum 

“Yes.” He lit a cigarette. “I suppose, 
strictly speaking, all these smashes are. Still 
Bunny was looking rather run-down to-day. 
With anybody not so strong I should have said 
it was nerves.” He looked at Betty. To his 
surprise, her eyes were flaming. 

“Ralph, listen. I’ll tell you why it was. 
Bunny was a wreck. He’d been living in hell 
for the best part of a week! The man had been 
^ — been scared! I saw it in his eyes. You know 
>vhat I mean — not of flying — of her, something 
she had done.” She paused. 

“What, Betty?” 

“Well, playing with fire as usual. And this 
time she’s set the house alight. A week ago 
Bunny was away for a night at Boston. Yvonne 
was with me all the evening, chatting, and as it 
got late she stayed the night. She was very 
worried about her affairs, and I lent her a thou- 
sand dollars. There’s nothing in that, of course. 
I found out accidentally what Bunny’s trouble 
was, this afternoon.” Betty was deliberate, 
merciless. “She had actually told him, or led 
him to believe that she had sold herself that 
night! She deliberately threw him into a hell 


The Distant Drum 


193 


like that, and kept him in it — even this after- 
noon when she was purring round him! And 
she’s supposed to be a human being, Ralph, 
and I’m supposed to be like her. I hope it’s 
only outwardly.” 

Delamotte sank back on the cushions with an 
oath. “I beg your pardon, Betty, but it’s the 
limit. What a devil! There’s a man who’s 
crazy about her — a strong man, and she trying 
to do him in. God knows why. Perhaps be- 
cause he is a strong man. And she’ll finish him 
* — you’ll see if she doesn’t. No man’s armour 
is proof against that sort of thing, unless he 
doesn’t care, and Bunny isn’t that sort. He’s 
going to stick.” 

“I believe you, Ralph,” Betty said resignedly. 
“To-day’s bad enough, but there’ll be worse. 
Nobody can do anything more. We tried the 
experiment of taking her up again after her 
marriage. But we were fools. The result 
was inevitable with a woman like her. She’s 
tainted!” Betty blazed into sudden passion. 
“I ought to have known better. She even 
served me a trick, two years ago — you know 
about that, Ralph. A little thing compared to 


194 The Distant Drum 

some of the others. I’d almost forgotten it until 
to-day. Now I’m finished. I shan’t be rude 
to her, but if I ever get a chance I’d like to give 
her a dose of her own medicine.” 

“You’re quite right,” Delamotte replied as 
the car turned into Fifth Avenue. “It’s time 
sentiment over Yvonne gave way to sense. To 
put it bluntly, she wants the whip.” 


CHAPTER V 


Y VONNE’S fair head was bent over a book. 

At the base of the sharp cone of light from 
the shade of a reading lamp, the open page 
showed white and naked out of the soft harmo- 
nies of grey shadow and rose-coloured drapery 
about her bedroom. 

Through the open door came the grave, com- 
panionable “tack-tock” of a grandfather clock on 
the landing, making patient effort to keep time 
with the difficult breathing of the sick man, at 
whose feet Yvonne was sitting. As she rustled 
a leaf noisily, the clock gave out a faint warning 
rumble from its chest, hesitated a second doubt- 
fully, as if fearing to disturb the sleeper, and 
then with laboured responsibility counted out 
ten. Outside a newsboy ran past with an 
“extra,” raucously disturbing the quiet street. 
Yvonne caught the word Carpathia and 
looked up, remembering it was the night when 
the survivors of the Titanic were expected. 
195 


196 The Distant Drum 

All New York would be down at the dock to 
see the Carpathia come up the river. Per- 
haps that was why everything seemed so still, 
so awe-inspiring, she thought, recalling the city 
as she had seen it that afternoon, a hushed city, 
waiting for her home-coming dead. 

Bunny stirred restlessly, and opened his eyes. 

“What is it, dear?” Yvonne asked gently. 
Going to him, she laid her hand on his bandaged 
head. 

“Have you heard if that boy’s any better yet?” 

“Oh, yes, much better,” she answered readily. 
“Out of danger, Ralph tells me. But don’t 
think about that, dear old thing.” Her hand 
trembled, as she smoothed the pillow. “Go to 
sleep again. You want plenty of rest.” 

“How long is it now since the smash?” 

“A week.” 

“I wonder if you’re lying to me now. I’ve an 
idea he’s dead,” Bunny muttered wearily, and 
closed his eyes. 

Yvonne went back to her book. For a long 
time, she sat staring past it, with miserable 
eyes. A tear fell and splashed heavily on the 
white page — and another. 


The Distant Drum 197 

Presently her maid tip-toed into the room and 
whispered to her. 

“Mr. Davenport?” Yvonne repeated dully. 

“Yes, ma’am. Mrs. Sebastin he asked for,” 
the maid explained with diffidence. 

Yvonne got up quickly. At the door she 
turned. “Stay here till I come back,” she or- 
dered in a low voice. “Don’t leave Mr. 
Thorne.” Gathering her skirts around her, she 
ran down the stairs. 

She found Davenport in Bunny’s den. He 
was wearing a shabby overcoat, too small for 
him, and clutching nervously at a soft felt hat 
on the table. In the second before he spoke, 
Yvonne noticed vaguely that he looked ill. He 
seemed to have been drinking a little, of course. 
But there was a light in his eyes, a terrible glad- 
ness. 

“Yvonne — Yvonne — ” he jerked out help- 
lessly, and took a step towards her. “To see you 
— after nearly a year.” 

Yvonne closed the door. 

“How are you, Wilbur?” she said coldly from 
the opposite side of the table. “I didn’t know 
you were back.” 


198 The Distant Drum 

“I’ve just landed. I came straight to you.” 
His eyes were pleading to her. Yvonne was 
looking down. She made no reply. “Haven’t 
you anything to say to me?” he asked hoarsely. 
“Oh, don’t judge me by these clothes. They’re 
all I could get on the Carpathia/' 

“The Carpathia !” Yvonne was roused to 
astonishment. “ Why, were you on the Titanic ?” 

“Yes,” he said shortly. “Never mind about 
that. Do you care?” 

“Of course I’m glad you were saved.” 

“Yes, yes, but more than that.” He drew in 
a sharp, apprehensive breath. “Do you want me 
back?” 

Yvonne’s mind was made up. She looked at 
him insolently. “I think I put you wise about 
that over the ’phone the day you went away.” 

“Ah, that!" His eyes dulled a moment. “I 
didn’t let myself take much notice of that. 
When you said you wouldn’t marry me — when 
you answered questions I hadn’t asked — I knew 
you were speaking for somebody’s benefit. 
That’s an old trick of yours, you know.” He 
spoke quite simply. “I had your letter. That’s 
what I’ve been banking on.” 


The Distant Drum 


199 


“Oh, is it?” An ugly coarseness smirched the 
fairness of her face and crept into her voice. 
“Well, you’ve got a fine chance, let me tell you 
1 — a fine chance!” she drawled. 

Davenport flinched and put his hand to his 
forehead. 

“I don’t know how you’ve had the nerve to 
come back,” she went on cruelly. “But if you 
come here again, I’ll get you put away for 
good.” 

Davenport shook his head doggedly. “If 
you mean that, Yvonne, for God’s sake do it 
right here, for I don’t care — now.” He spoke 
in quiet desperation. “I took my chance of that 
when I went on board at Southampton. Took 
my chance to see you” — he raised his voice — “do 
you get me? Just to see you. Perhaps I’ll 
get twenty years for it, but if I think it’s worth 
it, who the hell’s business is it but mine? That’s 
what you are to me — all that. I suppose I 
thought there was a chance to get you back, and 
I gambled on it.” 

“Don’t speak so loud, you fool!” Yvonne in- 
terrupted. “I don’t want the servants to hear. 
Now, listen to me. There’s another man now 


200 


The Distant Drum 


— has been for some time. If you knew me so 
well you might have guessed that.” 

“My God!” Davenport shuddered, and the 
lines on his face deepened. “Is that true?” 

Yvonne laughed lightly. 

“Oh, of course it is. As you say, I ought to 
have known — I ought to have known!” He sat 
down heavily. “I kept your letter through 
everything, Yvonne.” His hand strayed piti- 
fully to the breast of his shabby, ludicrous coat. 
“And yet I suppose I did know, on those end- 
less empty nights when I’ve looked out of my 
window, and been maddened to think of you — 
and that ! — behind the silence of the thousands 
of miles — somewhere — ” He paused and looked 
at her hopelessly. “It is true, of course?” 

“You bet your life it’s true,” she said, un- 
moved. “A better man than you, too. A man 
who thinks I’m the best woman living, who 
doesn’t drink, who understands me.” 

“Thinks you the best woman in the world? 
Then he doesn't understand you!” Davenport 
sprang to his feet, staggering, and flung his for- 
lorn hope at her merciless stronghold. “No- 
body does, as I do! Not even yourself. I don’t 


The Distant Drum 201 

think you’re the best woman in the world — I’ve 
no delusions, no pipe dreams about you. I want 
you, that’s all there is to it. And remember this, 
there’s nobody who knows how to make it worth 
your while like I do!” 

Yvonne winced and looked up, a faint gleam 
of interest kindling in her cold eyes. 

“I’ve got the money, for one thing, honestly 
enough, too, though I don’t think you bother 
about that for all your talk. I’ve had to work 
damned hard for it since I left. God knows I 
kept every cent for you, but that isn’t the point. 
Oh, I know every turn and twist of your mind. 
It’s not the money, it’s the way we knew how to 
spend it — you and I — in the old days” — he 
turned on her with sudden ferocity — “you 
haven’t forgotten them, you never could, it’s in 
your blood, you devil! Does he know your 
moods, this man of yours? When to take you 
out, and when to leave you alone? What to 
give you to eat! Does he know the night-life 
of New York as I do? The restaurants from 
Herald Square to Columbus Circle, where 
every damned head-waiter would give us the 
best table when everybody else was turned 


202 


The Distant Drum 


away? Where we’d stay till daylight, and go 
home to fight with one another because I’d been 
drinking — drinking!” — he laughed deliriously 
— “what the hell did you care whether I’d been 
drinking or not! You liked to know you could 
make me drunk — drunk with your beauty! 
Does he know the whole wild life of Broadway 
as we knew it? The white lights, Yvonne, and 
everything it means to you? — Ah! — ” he broke 
off, panting. 

Yvonne was staring at him wide-eyed, sway- 
ing ever so little as if listening to the dance of 
the spirits he conjured up. 

“Does he know? Tell me!” Davenport flung 
at her. “No, of course he doesn’t. I can see 
that.” His voice dropped and became dry, 
rasping. “I suppose he thinks that sort of life’s 
not good enough for you — prefers to think 
you’re the best woman in the world, and gets 
scared to death when he finds you’re not. Taken 
in by your looks, like everybody else, except me. 
You mustn’t do this and you mustn’t go there, 
and it’s not quite nice for you to meet so-and-so 
— oh, hell!” He pushed the table aside, and 
striding forward, pinned her by the arms. 


The Distant Drum 203 

“How long will that suit you? There’s nothing 
like that about me. I know you’re rotten, but 
that’s the pull you have on me. It’s your bad- 
ness I love, and it’s that I’ve come back for.” 

Her breath came in quick gasps as she 
wrenched herself free and turned away. “No, 
no, no!” she began. “Go away now, I must 
have time to think.” 

“Then you’ll see me — to-morrow?” 

She shivered a little. “Oh, I don’t know. 
Perhaps. But say, Wilbur, by the way,” she 
went on impulsively, “Jacques has started a new 
cabaret, you remember Jacques of the Taba- 
rin !” She stopped confusedly. “Oh, what am 
I saying, why can’t you go, man? But wait a 
moment; I want to tell you something. I’m 
living with this man, do you see? And people 
think we’re married. I’ve given it out, so don’t 
be surprised if you hear it.” 

Davenport laughed shortly. “I shouldn’t be 
surprised at anything I hear about you, Yvonne. 
But I’m not likely to believe that.” 

“No, I suppose not. Now, go, Wilbur, at 
once. You quite understand you’re not to come 
here any more?” 


204 


The Distant Drum 


Davenport swung towards the door. As he 
came by her, he halted and turned. Yvonne 
stepped back quickly. “Don’t be crazy!” she 
exclaimed, frowning. His arms dropped to his 
side. 

“Same old Yvonne!” he said. “Well, it’s 
your one good point. I’ll telephone you to- 
morrow where you can find me. What’s your 
number?” 

She told him and let him out of the hall door 
without another word. 

At the door of her bedroom her maid met her. 
“Mr. Thorne’s asleep, ma’am,” she said. “He’s 
been reading.” 

“Very well, you can go.” 

Yvonne glanced at the bed, and began to pace 
the room with nervous steps. Suddenly she 
stopped by the window, and holding aside the 
shade looked out. Away to the left the purple 
pall of the sky was torn into a ragged golden 
fringe, where the glare of Broadway overflowed 
the broken line of roofs. There was a deeper 
glow on Yvonne’s cheeks than they owed to the 
dimly lit hangings beside her, as she stood gaz- 


The Distant Drum 


2©5 

ing out towards this hidden land of the White 
Lights. 

She dropped the shade abruptly, and running 
lightly to the bed crouched down beside her 
husband, and threw an arm over the pillow. 

The book that he had been reading lay open 
by his side. She picked it up — it was her copy 
of the Poems of Pleasure — and glanced at a 
few marked lines on the page. 

“Tune up the fine, strong instrument of thy being 
To chord with thy dear hope, and do not tire; 

When both in key and rhythm are agreeing, 

Lo! thou shalt kiss the lips of thy desire.” 

She closed the book gently, and it slipped 
from her hand to the floor. 

“His — dear — hope!” she repeated. 

Again the clock fussily cleared its throat: 
again it hesitated, but this time, with less kindly 
impulse, it mocked her as it marked the passing 
of another hour. 

“His — dear — hope — his — dear — hope — his — 
dear — hope — his — dear — ” 

And Bunny slept quietly. 


CHAPTER VI 


TDUNNY’S injuries kept him an impatient 
prisoner in the house for another fort- 
night, and on calling terms with his doctor for 
some considerable time after that. From the 
very outset, from the time when he had been 
taken off the field after his accident, Yvonne 
had taken charge of the case with a thorough- 
ness which admitted of no interference from 
anybody, and which at times produced an un- 
easy feeling in the mind of the doctor himself 
that he was, in spite of his thirty years’ experi- 
ence, little more than a budding medical stu- 
dent. For her own reasons, or possibly for no 
reason at all, Yvonne refused with much pretty 
show of gratitude Delamotte’s offer to attend 
to Bunny himself. But she had devised a some- 
what intricate schedule of the days and hours at 
which she considered it suitable for Ralph and 
Bobby to make their appearance, a copy of 
which she presented to each. 

206 


The Distant Drum 207 

From a close study of these time-tables it ap- 
peared to them that, for reasons of hygiene, pre- 
sumably, they were only permitted to make their 
appearance at one and the same time on a certain 
afternoon in each week. This precaution against 
the dangers of overcrowding they nullified by 
conveniently losing the documents altogether 
“on a ferry-boat,” an explanation which Yvonne 
received with the respect it deserved. What 
Yvonne lacked in experience she certainly 
made up for in enthusiasm. It was impossible, 
for instance, to shake her faith in the miraculous 
properties of a wet sponge applied to the face 
at intervals of five minutes during the day, a 
conviction which amused Bunny in his easier 
moments, and brought back vividly to him the 
well-meaning efforts of the amateur nurses dur- 
ing the Boer war. 

But her entire sweetness and devotion to him 
during the early days of his suffering almost 
negatived the feeling of repulsion which the 
discovery of her latest and most deadly trick 
had produced in him. Almost, but not quite; 
he had his darker hours, when the pain he suf- 
fered from the shock of the accident and the 


2o8 


The Distant Drum 


stinging cuts on his head and body was negligi- 
ble beside the pain of his restless mind. And it 
was always at such times that he found, almost 
with a feeling of irritation, that Yvonne seemed 
to him most particularly and unconsciously 
charming. That was, of course, had he but 
known it, merely another way of impressing 
upon himself that he was just as determinedly 
and madly in love with Yvonne as ever. 

If he was logically compelled to condemn 
her, at the back of his own mind, he never al- 
lowed a hint of such a thing to come from any- 
one else. It was, curiously enough, Ralph 
Delamotte who was the first to voice the general 
feeling in his circle of intimates as to the cause 
of his accident. About ten days after it, they 
came to the conclusion that it was time to tell 
Bunny of the death of his passenger. Ralph 
led up to the subject casually enough, sitting on 
the edge of the bed with a highball in his hand 
and a strong distaste for his mission in his mind. 
Bunny, however, took the news with more 
equanimity than Ralph had dared to hope for. 

“I was pretty sure of that, Ralph, all the time. 
He went over my head, you know, just before I 


The Distant Drum 209 

lost my senses. I wonder if he jumped. I re- 
member shouting to him not to, poor devil !” 

“He didn’t jump, Bunny. We saw him 
flung out after the machine struck,” Ralph ob- 
served. “Oh, well, Bunny, it’s a chance every- 
one has to take, flying. Don’t worry yourself 
about it.” 

“It’s not a chance everybody takes. It wasn’t 
that time, anyway,” Bunny said bitterly. “I’d 
no business to have taken anybody up that after- 
noon. I knew I wasn’t fit. That fellow’s 
death will hang over me like a nightmare all 
my life.” 

“Rot! Even if you weren’t yourself, some- 
body else should be blamed, not you.” Ralph 
said with ill-advised bluntness. “You mustn’t 
mind my saying so, but it was plain enough that 
- — well, that Yvonne had been upsetting you.” 

Bunny sat up heatedly. “I do mind your 
saying so, very much. Understand that. In 
the first place you’re entirely wrong about 
Yvonne, entirely. In the second, I’m not a 
child to have to be told whether it’s right for 
me to do a thing or not. If I didn’t feel fit to 
fly, it was up to me to chuck it for the day, and 


210 


The Distant Drum 


not to throw away a life because I didn’t have 
a nursemaid to take me home in a perambula- 
tor.” Bunny spoke with cutting emphasis. “I 
don’t want to hear you or anybody else talk like 
that again. It’s cowardly. Time enough to do 
so when I start to blame Yvonne for anything I 
do, and that’ll be a hell of a long time, believe 
me.” 

Ralph apologised and led the conversation to 
safer channels, but it gave him food for reflec- 
tion. 

Yvonne at this time was as indefatigable as 
ever in her efforts to make Bunny as comfortable 
as possible, and, when she was not pottering 
about the house, she was busily engaged in ran- 
sacking the drug stores for all the known — and 
unknown — products of the fertile brains of the 
patent-medicine maker. Bunny noticed event- 
ually, however, that Yvonne’s energy on his be- 
half was apparently beginning to have its effect. 
She came in one afternoon, a week after Daven- 
port’s visit, looking white and tired out, and he 
thought it was time to make a protest. 

“You’re overdoing it, Yvonne, old girl,” he 
said kindly. “You’ll be getting ill yourself. 


The Distant Drum 


21 1 


next, and then what should I do? Give your- 
self a rest, won’t you? Here,” he reached out 
for her hand, “come and sit down.” 

Yvonne snatched her hand away and gave 
herself a little nervous shake. “Oh, don’t, 
Bunny! I’m — tired.” She walked to the 
dressing table, hesitated, and came back. “I’m 
sorry, dear, I didn’t mean to be cross.” 

“Anything worrying you, Yvonne? Oh, by 
the way,” he took up an envelope from the side 
of the bed. “Here’s a cheque that’s just come. 
I daresay you can do with it. It’s a thousand.” 

She took it and laid it aside. “All right, 
Bunny,” she answered abstractedly. 

A few days later he got up for the first time, 
and shortly afterwards was able to go out for 
occasional drives with Yvonne. He was no- 
ticing more and more plainly the signs of the 
dreaded demon of nerves. Frequently she 
would spend the best part of the afternoon 
fidgeting with a pack of cards, pretending to 
play patience; or at other times she would sit 
gazing vacantly before her, to get up suddenly 
and go out on some mysterious errand. All 
these little straws seemed to show that the ca- 


212 


The Distant ©rum 


pricious wind of Yvonne’s emotions was tend- 
ing to blow in some direction at present unre- 
vealed to him. It was disturbing, but he was 
able to extract considerable comfort from the 
fact that they had made arrangements to get 
away within a few days from the city for a 
month or so, and he hoped that the change to the 
country would bring back the blessed frame of 
mind that he had first found her in a year ago. 

The days passed uneventfully but for these un- 
certain moods of Yvonne’s, and by this time he 
had practically thrown off the effect of the acci- 
dent. Yvonne, too, seemed to liven up under 
the stimulus of their approaching departure, 
and she was entering spiritedly into her prepara- 
tions. It had been decided that they were to give 
up the house in Fortieth Street entirely, and 
Yvonne had some friends who wished to take 
it off their hands. 

On a particularly hot evening — it was now 
getting well on towards June — Yvonne had 
gone out to dinner with these people to make 
the final arrangements, and Bunny was facing 
the rather cheerless prospect of spending the 


The Distant Drum 


213 


evening in the discomfort of disordered furni- 
ture and littered trunks; and when Yvonne 
packed her clothes for a long absence baggage 
was apt to hit one in the eye at every turn, as 
he had reason to remember. 

He dined quietly by himself at his club, as 
the servants had been given an evening out, and 
walked home, rather glad of the fact that Dela- 
motte had rung up and said that he would look 
in to keep him company. Letting himself into 
the gloomy hall Bunny made his way up to the 
library, and throwing off his coat, dropped into 
a chair at his desk, and set to work on some files 
of correspondence. At length the front door 
bell disturbed him and he went down and let 
Delamotte in. 

“Hullo, Bunny! All alone?” he said rather 
shortly. 

“Yes. I’m glad you came along. Here, 
give me your hat.” 

Delamotte strode into Bunny’s den on the 
right of the hall, and sat down abruptly. 

“Thorne, I’ve come here to speak to you very 
plainly to-night. I can’t help whether you 


214 


The Distant Drum 


mind it or not. I’ve watched things going 
plumb to hell with you long enough, and it’s 
time you knew it.” 

“What do you mean, Ralph?” Bunny said, 
with some annoyance. 

“What do I mean? Sit down, and I’ll tell 
you. Good Lord! It’s always the husband 
who’s the last to know these things, that’s the 
damnable pity of it. Thorne, you’ll admit that 
I’m your friend — the best friend you’ve had 
since you came to New York last year? All 
right, then. You’ll also admit that I know 
what goes on in New York pretty well? Well, 
I’m going to say something to you to-night that 
will probably want to make you kick me out of 
the house.” 

Thorne had started up out of his chair, but 
the finality of the other man’s manner forced 
him back. In a sub-conscious way, he felt that 
something like this had to come, that he had 
been expecting it, although now he was desper- 
ately afraid of what he was going to hear. 

Delamotte lit a cigarette, watching Thorne 
all the time with stern, unyielding blue eyes. 
He went on. “I’m going to talk to you about 


The Distant Drum 215 

Yvonne — about your wife. I know it’s a thank- 
less job, to interfere in these things, but I like 
you, Bunny, and, as you’re the particular sort of 
fool who can’t or won’t see what everybody else 
has known for years, I’ve got to do it. Now, 
don’t interrupt me. I’m going to take up about 
twenty minutes of your time to state the case 
as I know it. In the first place, Yvonne’s had 
two husbands, not one. She’s been clever 
enough to divorce them both. The first one is 
now in a lunatic asylum; the second one is fool 
enough to be drinking himself to death about 
her now.” 

“Stop, Delamotte. That’s quite enough. 
I’ve no doubt you mean well, but it’s quite use- 
less. Now, you know me by now for a fairly 
obstinate fellow. Well, my mind was made up 
when I married Yvonne and I’m not going to 
change it. I’m quite willing to accept your 
word for these things, and any others you insist 
on revealing. I’m quite ready to remind you 
myself of one or two tricks she’s played which 
haven’t made life any too pleasant, just to em- 
phasise what a fool I am, if you like, but, as a 
matter of fact, I’m going to stick to her. 


2l6 


The Distant Drum 


Whether I’m right or not is a matter of opinion 
as to what one gets married for.” 

“Bunny, I shouldn’t have been such a fool,” 
Ralph persisted, “as to come here to tell you 
what I have, and nothing else. You must allow 
me to finish what I came to say. Whether it 
affects your decision or not, remember that I 
am here to help you. Listen. Do you know 
what her relations were with Wilbur Daven- 
port? Friends! Yes, they were, very good 
friends. She’d been his mistress for over a 
year.” 

“Not that!” Thorne made a great effort to 
control himself. His face was ghastly. The 
dulled memory of Yvonne’s portrait as he had 
once seen it stood again before his eyes, with 
vivid insolence. “Ah! I remember,” he con- 
tinued. “Delamotte, in this case I happen to 
know you’re wrong. Yvonne in my presence 
broke off her engagement to Davenport over 
the ’phone, and told him that she was quit of 
him. It was when she found out about that 
crooked business of his that he had to clear out 
for.” 

“Look here, Bunny, it is true,” Delamotte 


The Distant Drum 


217 

said earnestly. “I wish to God it were not. 
She never had any more intention of marrying 
him than me. I don’t know anything about 
that telephone message, but, you can take it from 
me, it was some sort of fake.” 

“Wait a minute, Delamotte. There’s one 
little thing you’re not being quite straight about. 
Aren’t you allowing your feelings for Yvonne 
to influence you in what you’re saying?” 

“My feelings for Yvonne! I think I’ve 
given you a pretty good indication of what they 
are. What do you mean?” 

“Well, it’s a delicate thing to talk about, but 
we’re not mincing matters to-night, apparently. 
Aren’t you influenced in what you say by a cer- 
tain amount of jealousy? I understood there 
was something of that sort in your warning to 
me before we were married.” 

“Did she suggest that?” Delamotte laughed 
with frank amusement. “Oh, Yvonne! 
Yvonne! Oh, well, in case you think there’s 
anything in it I can assure you it’s been quite 
difficult enough to be even friends with Yvonne 
for the last few years. But, Bunny,” he contin- 
ued seriously, “I want you to cut it out. She’s 


2l8 


The Distant Drum 


killing you by inches. It doesn’t take a doctor 
to see that. Everybody notices it. What? 
Bah! What are business worries? I’ve got 
’em, so has everybody these days.” 

“She’s been ill lately, you know,” Thorne said 
quietly. 

“Ah, ill! I’ll tell you about those illnesses. 
Remember, I’ve known Yvonne for a good 
many years. She’s now twenty-eight, isn’t she? 
Well, seven years ago Yvonne was a beautiful 
woman, and she was never ill. Now she’s a 
beautiful woman, perhaps more so in some 
respects, but there’s a difference. She’s been a 
drug fiend on and off all those seven years.” 

“For God’s sake, Ralph — ” 

“No, no, listen to me. You’re a sensible fel- 
low, Bunny. You know you might as well hear 
me out. Mind you, I’ve always liked Yvonne. 
One can’t help it. I know Yvonne’s better side, 
the side that appeals to you: her little ways 
with children, her love for the country, the open 
air — oh, a hundred things about her that are 
lovable, but I’ve got to do my best to prevent 
another tragedy. I’ve watched her go down 
the hill in those seven years, bit by bit, only 


The Distant Drum 


219 


slowly to begin with, but gradually getting up 
her pace until she seemed to be going too fast 
for anything to stop her. It started with little 
ugly rumours. Then the women began to give 
her up; you know what that means! Latterly 
she had known most of the men and none of the 
women in New York. Oh, Wilbur Davenport 
hasn’t been the only one, and she couldn’t play 
straight with any of them. Then she met you. 
Now, Bunny, Yvonne’s always taken a certain 
amount of notice of my advice, and she came to 
me about you. She said that she was in love 
with you and was going to marry you. I told 
her of course that she had no right to marry any- 
one; at any rate, without telling him a good 
many things he ought to know.” He turned to 
Bunny. “I want to make the situation clear.” 

Thorne’s face was stern and purposeful. 
“Go on, get it over,” he said shortly. 

“Yvonne assured me that she still had her 
few ideals left and that, whatever I advised, she 
was going to marry you and cut out the old 
life. Well, she meant it at the time, I could 
see that, but that was where I made my mis- 
take. She can’t cut out the old life. I’m per- 


220 


The Distant Drum 


fectly willing to believe that she wanted to at 
the time. Of course she’d never been loved by 
any of them as she was by you, and she was tre- 
mendously influenced by that. Then you mar- 
ried her, and that’s how things stood till a 
month or two ago, but when she came back from 
England she started the drug business again. 
Remember, I’ve watched things rather closely, 
both from a medical and psychological stand- 
point, and I know what I’m talking about. 
There’s another thing. I know you didn’t 
marry Yvonne for money, but you knew she had 
a good deal, didn’t you?” 

Thorne nodded. 

“And after you were married I suppose she 
told you her money was held up by her credi- 
tors. Well, that money was stopped by Daven- 
port when he left the country, because he hadn’t 
any more to give her.” 

Bunny sprang up. “If all this is true, and I 
suppose I ought to call you a damned liar, can’t 
you understand, man, what I’m driving at? 
That I wouldn’t allow it to influence me now, 
because she is my wife. Although it’s flung me 
down into hell, what of it? I can climb up 


The Distant Drum 


221 


again and carry her with me away from it all, 
away from the men and women who won’t let a 
woman rest with the man who loves her, who 
are content to live their own rotten lives as long 
as they’re not found out. I tell you this, Dela- 
motte, once and for all, my life with Yvonne 
started from the day I married her. Anything 
that happened before that time may be my own 
particular hell, but it isn’t to affect her, do you 
see? You may be right about her taking drugs, 
you may be right about lots of things, but I’ve 
got my own ideas of how to deal with them. 
Isn’t it up to me, her husband, to take her away 
from it all? To help her with it by showing 
that her confidence in me is justified? To 
prove to her that she has been starved of the 
things that really matter, and that she’s going 
to have them with me, and to have them for 
good this time? That’s my answer to you, Del- 
amotte, and nothing you can say will shake me.” 
Thorne was speaking coolly and deliberately. 
“I was letting my nerves get the better of me, 
but now I can see plainly enough that I am 
wanted, and I’m going to start right away. I’m 
going to take her away from here to-morrow.” 


222 


The Distant Drum 


“No, to-morrow will be too late!” 

“What do you mean? Tell me at once, 
Ralph!” 

Delamotte watched him. He knew that he 
had to strike him hard, and for a moment he 
hesitated. Then, “Because to-morrow she is 
going away with Davenport!” 

Thorne’s self-control left him completely. 
He strode over to Delamotte, his hands 
clenched, his chest heaving with the unreason- 
ing fury of a madman. Delamotte rose quickly 
and faced him. 

“Yes, you poor fool. Of course she’s going 
away with Davenport. I saw them dining at 
Cartin’s just before I came here, and that means 
only a question of hours, for I’ll say this for 
Yvonne, she wouldn’t do it if she weren’t going 
to leave you. She’s got more pride than that. 
It’s no good, Bunny. I admire your pluck, but 
you can’t bet against certainties. She’s heard 
the call of the old life again, and there’s no help 
for it. Davenport’s the sort of man for her. 
She probably doesn’t care two cents for him. 
But he understands her.” Delamotte flung out 
his hand impatiently. 


The Distant Drum 


223 


“There’s many a man has tried the same thing 
as you have, and where are they to-day? You’ll 
find plenty of them in the saloons of New York, 
the veldt of South Africa, the underworld of 
Paris and London. I’ve seen them as you 
probably have, wearing their bodies and their 
hearts out for things like that.” Ralph snapped 
his fingers towards a photo of Yvonne on the 
mantelpiece. “I’ve left it too long, I know, 
but I’ve come here to-night, to get you to come 
back with me, to get right away to-night, before 
she can be dangerous, because she means to be. 
Oh, of course you don’t believe it. Even what 
you have been through lately hasn’t taught you. 
But I know what I’m talking about. Will you 
come?” He looked straight into Thorne’s eyes 
and held out his hand. 

Bunny was looking past him out into the 
darkness of the hall. 

Delamotte stood for a moment, then shrug- 
ging his shoulders went to the front door and 
opened it. Thorne did not move. Delamotte 
took him impulsively by the shoulder. 

“Bunny, old man, I’m sorry I lost my temper. 
Forget it and come home with me, will you?” 


224 


The Distant Drum 


Bunny still stood unheeding, rigid. Then 
from the blackness upstairs came the shrill sum- 
mons of the telephone bell. Bunny relaxed 
with a shudder, and made for the stairs. Then 
he hesitated and called to Delamotte in an un- 
natural voice. “Turn up the light, Delamotte, 
will you?” 

Delamotte found the switch and clicked the 
light into the dark places of the stairs. He 
waited while he heard Thorne go into the bed- 
room and lift the receiver. 

“Hullo yes, Yvonne, where are you? 

with Davenport! 1 thought you were going 

to the Anderson’s what? no, nothing the 

matter except you’ve no business to be running 

about New York with him no, I don’t want 

to know anything about it now. Hurry up and 

come back oh, yes, yes, I believe you 

good-bye.” The bell tingled faintly and Thorne 
came down the stairs at a run. Delamotte met 
him, his face working with anger. 

“Man, you’re hopeless! I’ve done. Take 
her to your arms, let her whisper her smooth 
lies in your ear! There’s an end coming. 
Now, mark what I say, she’s dangerous to- 


The Distant Drum 


225 


night. What she’s up to I don’t know, but you 
can bet your life she’s planned it out pretty care- 
fully — because she means to go away with Dav- 
enport to-morrow. She’s a very cunning 
woman, almost cunning enough to be clever, 
sometimes, and she’s going to finish you off as 
she finished the others. Now, what’s your an- 
swer?” 

“I gave you that half an hour ago, when you 
first came.” Thorne stood alert, defiant, more 
like his old self. “I’m going to stand by 
Yvonne whatever happens. And I shall come 
out on top. Your elaborate psychology means 
nothing to me whatever. Her tricks and lies, 
such as they are, I’m going to knock out of her 
in my own way. As for Davenport, I don’t be- 
lieve a word of it, and if I did, I should still 
have the same answer. Good night.” 

“Good night, Bunny.” 

Delamotte stepped outside and closed the 
door carefully. 


CHAPTER VII 


T HORNE listened to the footsteps going 
slowly up the street, turned and went 
quickly back to the room. 

Obeying a sudden impulse, he went to a cab- 
inet standing against the wall, took out a de- 
canter of brandy, and pouring himself out a 
large glassful gulped it down. Thorne had 
never been a drinking man, but he wanted it 
to numb the agony of his mind, the terror at his 
heart that amounted to a physical pain. He 
took another and another glassful. For a few 
moments he stood there as the fumes mounted 
to his head. Queer disconnected thoughts be- 
gan to roam through his mind, tumbling over 
one another, racing round and round, gro- 
tesque, inconsequent. Little unconsidered tri- 
fles about . the room stood out importantly. He 
found himself studying them, wondering why 
he had never noticed them before. 

But for the sirens of the East River ferry- 

226 


The Distant Drum 


227 


boats, ceaselessly playing their deep musical 
notes, and the occasional momentary roar of a 
Third Avenue Elevated, passing the end of the 
street, there was breathless, portentous silence. 
Bunny put back the decanter and glass in the 
cabinet. As he did so, he heard the rattle of a 
taxicab coming slowly down the quiet street. 
He went to the door to meet her — he knew it 
must be Yvonne — and opening it watched the 
taxi lurch heavily over the badly paved street, 
the driver peering at the numbers. At last 
he pulled up at the house. Bunny’s brain 
throbbed wildly. As he started down the steps, 
Davenport, drunk and dishevelled, half fell 
out of the taxi, dragging Yvonne with him, 
and staggered up towards Bunny. Yvonne 
wrenched herself free and ran up to her hus- 
band. 

“Listen to me, Bunny!” she gasped, catching 
him by the shoulders. “Get him inside! 
Bunny, dear, believe me, it’s all right. Get him 
inside. I’ll explain everything. Send the 
taxi away. There mustn’t be a scene here.” 
She ran from him into the hall, and stood pant- 
ing, one hand clutching her side. 


228 


The Distant Drum 


Bunny’s chest heaved with one supreme ef- 
fort to control himself, and then he went down 
the few steps to where Davenport was leaning 
against the parapet. Remembering the wait- 
ing taxi driver he turned and threw him a dollar 
bill. Then, without a word, he clutched Dav- 
enport by the collar and flung him up the steps 
into the hall, closing the door after them. 

“In here, Bunny, bring him in here.” 
Yvonne went swiftly into Bunny’s den and stood 
by the table. Her face was ghastly white. A 
silk opera wrap flung back from her shoulders 
revealed her lovely figure clad in a clinging 
black frock. As she stood there, with her little 
head held back, she made a superb picture. 

Bunny gave one look at her, and came to a 
quick decision. He half dragged, half pushed 
Davenport into the room. “Now, then, you, 
whoever you are,” he said curtly, “what’s the 
meaning of this? Tell me quickly, and mind 
what you say, if you value your neck.” 

Davenport was recovering rapidly. His 
fuddled brain was beginning to realise that it 
would want all its powers to deal with the situ- 
ation. He leaned up against the bookcase, and 


The Distant Drum 229 

wagged a shaky forefinger at Thorne. 
“S’ you’re th’ guy, are you? Well, I’ve got a 
sh’prise for you,” he started, and looked at 
Yvonne. “To make long shtory short, I knew 
’Vonne long time b’fore you did — ” He 
stopped and gave a cunning look at Bunny, who 
was devoting all his attention to the pattern of 
the carpet. Davenport plucked up his courage, 
and proceeded to fire his bombshell. “ ’N fact 
I lived with her for ’year.” 

A pause. Davenport was disconcerted. 
Yvonne was staring at Bunny, her bosom heav- 
ing, fear and wonder alight in her eyes. 

Bunny raised his head. “I beg your pardon, 
what were you saying?” 

Davenport, reassured, raised his voice. “I 
said I lived with her for ’year. Di’n’t I, 
’Vonne?” 

“Oh, Bunny, I can’t bear it! It’s — ” 

Thorne was looking Davenport up and down 
critically. “If that is so, I don’t admire her, 
taste,” he interrupted quietly. “She must have 
had a remarkably bad time. If you have any- 
thing further to say, please be quick about it. 
Yvonne, will you go upstairs? It’s getting late. 


230 


The Distant Drum 


I’ll be coming to you when I have seen this 
— gentleman out.” He held open the door for 
her. 

She gave one long bewildered look at him, 
hesitated, then passed slowly out and up the 
stairs. 

“Is there anything else?” he asked as steadily 
as he could, finding the effort of keeping this up 
almost too much for him. All the concentrated 
misery of his life during the last two months 
was rising up in him, urging him to get to grips 
with Davenport, and silence him for ever. 

Davenport was speaking again. “Yes, 
there’s ’lot more.” His rage was having a so- 
bering effect on him. “You may be sh’prised 
to hear it, but I loved ’Vonne a long time, and 
you took her from me.” He straightened him- 
self up. “I still love her, and I’ve done my 
level best to get her back. Well, she’s coming 
away with me. To hell with you! It isn’t 
often I don’t get what I want with her, and I 
knew she would sooner or later, you gol darned 
Englishman! You don’ know how to keep her, 
you an’ your bes: woman in the world! Oh, 
she’s tol’ me all about it!” 


The Distant Drum 231 

Thome laughed shortly and stepped up close 
to him. “The only thing I admire about you 
is your nerve, you beast,” he said. “Do you 
know that, ever since you got out of that taxi, 
you’ve been within an inch of sudden death? 
Now I’ve had enough of you, you’d better go.” 

Davenport got as far as the door, and sud- 
denly bolted up the stairs before Bunny could 
realise his intention. He was quickly after 
him, cursing himself for having allowed Dav- 
enport to give him the slip so easily. As he 
reached the bend in the stairs, he saw Daven- 
port stop suddenly, staring with horror into 
Yvonne’s room. Bunny rushed up the remain- 
ing stairs, past him and into the room. He was 
not a second too soon. Yvonne stood in front 
of her dressing table, her right hand at her 
throat, grasping an open razor. He seized her 
wrist, but she showed more strength than he 
had thought possible. It was only after a 
struggle that Bunny was able to wrest the razor 
from her. Closing it, he slipped it into his 
pocket, and leaned exhausted against the man- 
telpiece. The dressing table glass reflected 
Davenport’s leering face for an instant. 


232 


The Distant Drum 


The front door shut noisily and the sound of 
a man running up the street came through the 
open windows of the library. 

Davenport had fled. 

Yvonne sat huddled up on the edge of the 
bed, sobbing quietly, her face buried in her 
hands. Her husband made a move as though 
to gather her up in his arms, but checked him- 
self and began to pace restlessly up and down 
the room. All the evening’s happenings came 
back to him and he felt dazed. Yvonne must 
give another more or less plausible explanation, 
of course; but he wanted a little time, a breath- 
ing space to think things over. 

Bunny went downstairs to his den. Taking 
out the brandy, he drank a wineglassful 
thirstily, and flung himself into a chair. 
Yvonne’s monotonous weeping vaguely irri- 
tated him. “Why,” he asked himself, “should 
she want to weep? Was it not he who would 
have to face the world with the burden of 
Delamotte’s disclosures weighing him down for 
the rest of his life? And yet he knew life to be 
impossible without Yvonne — he knew it more 
than ever to-night. Something must be done. 


The Distant Drum 233 

He must go to Yvonne and talk it over with 
her. 

Suddenly he was aware of a rustle of skirts 
in the doorway. He looked up. Yvonne was 
staring at the brandy decanter on the table, with 
fear in her eyes. 

“What’s the matter now, Yvonne?” Bunny 
said irritably. “Haven’t we had enough 
scenes for to-night? Can’t you sit down?” 

She crossed the room and pulling a chair up 
to the opposite side of the table, sat down shud- 
dering. “Bunny,” she began in a low weak 
voice, “what does this mean, this bottle?” 

He stared at her amazedly. 

“Bunny, I’ve got a lot to explain to-night. 
Let me go on. You don’t understand. I’ve 
got to try and make you, because I love you. I 
knew when I came in to-night, you’d been 
drinking, and it frightened me.” 

Bunny broke in brutally. “You ought to be 
used to that.” 

“Yes, you’ve every right to say that. It’s 
true, but it’s because I’ve been used to it, that 
I’m afraid — of you.” She was clasping and 
unclasping her hands nervously. Bunny never 


234 


The Distant Drum 


took his eyes off her face. He was groping in 
the dark for the meaning of what she was 
saying. 

“It’s because it’s you that I’m afraid,” she 
went on. “Listen! You’ve heard something 
about my life, my taking drugs. I’m sure of it. 
Well, there’s no excuse, but I want to make 
things a little clearer to you. I’ve married 
twice before, not once — perhaps you know that, 
too. I was married first when I was eighteen, 
and I found he was a drunkard. I lived with 
him for two years. He was always drinking. 
I tried my best to stop him, but it didn’t seem to 
be of much use. At last I divorced him; I 
couldn’t stand it any longer. Shortly afterwards 
he went insane and had to be put away. They 
say — they say I drove him to it. Bunny, it’s a 
lie. I want you to believe me. I never cared 
before whether I was believed, but I want you 
to.” 

“Yvonne, dear,” Thorne said pityingly, 
“it’s not a question of whether I believe. 
You’re not fit to talk to-night. Forget about 
it. Talk it over some other time. I’m going 
to carry you off to bed.” He got up and started 


The Distant Drum 


235 


to go to her; but she sprang from her chair 
and moved away. “No, Bunny, not — not that! 
Wait. I’m sorry, dear. I want to finish. Sit 
down over there again, will you?” 

Eunny stood still perplexed, then he went 
back and sat down. 

Yvonne continued, her breath coming in 
gasps. “You’ve got to believe me. Bunny, I 
suffered terribly then. I was beginning to hear 
things about myself, little things that hurt. 
Then I married again. Oh, I don’t know why. 
For protection, I suppose, I wasn’t in love. I 
found he drank, too. I never guessed it till I 
married him, and I think it nearly killed me. 
There were — other women, too. I took to 
drugs, never mind how. After a few months 
I ran away and left him, and divorced him. 
People began to cut me. Every man I met 
seemed to drink. Oh, Bunny, you’ve seen some 
of it in New York. It’s different in your coun- 
try. They keep it away from their women 
there. Then there was Davenport. What he 
said to-night was true. By that time I didn’t 
care.” 

Bunny tried to interrupt her. “No, no, 


The Distant Drum 


236 

Bunny, I must tell you. I suppose I got 
used to the life I was living, to being a — a kept 
woman. But it was the drug always that saved 
me from killing myself.” She sank back into 
her chair. “Then I met you, and I got to love 
you. Everything was so different. You 
brought me back into the world again, and you 
weren’t always drinking. I was so terribly 
afraid you’d get to know about me. But I took a 
tremendous chance over it and married you. I 
was even afraid of Davenport making trouble, 
although he’d had to leave the country. That’s 
why I insisted on it being done secretly. Then 
when he came back he began to worry me, and, 
Bunny, I started taking drugs again. I think 
I nearly went out of my mind. That and the 
worry of your being ill, but all the time I felt 
somehow that I could rely on you, even if you 
were to hear anything. 

“I had that one great fact to comfort myself 
with — you weren’t a drunkard. I always felt 
that if you did start drinking, if anything should 
make you, you’d be so different, different to these 
other men who drink because they’ve nothing else 
to do. I should be afraid of you. I haven’t 


The Distant Drum 


237 

much more to say. This morning Davenport 
rang me up and he said — oh, a lot of things that 
hurt and terrified me. He said if I didn’t come 
to dinner with him to-night he’d come and tell 
you everything. I made up my mind to go. He 
wanted me to leave you and go back to him. I 
told him it was impossible, that I loved you. 
He insisted on coming to see you, and you know 
the rest. I don’t suppose I was surprised when 
you didn’t take much notice of what he said. 
I’d always thought you were that sort of a man, 
at any rate I’d hoped so. God knows I had!” 
She stood up. “Now, Bunny, I’m going away 
from here to-night.” 

“Going away? Why? Where are you go- 
ing in the name of Heaven?” Bunny went up 
to her. “Yvonne, don’t go and make a mess of 
things now. Let’s go away and try and get on 
together better. I’m going to stand by you al- 
ways.” 

Yvonne shrank away from him. “Bunny, 
dear, I’ll be all right. I’m going out. Don’t 
follow me. I’ll come back in the morning, if 
you want me, I swear I will. But to-night, 
you’ve been drinking and I’m desperately afraid 


The Distant Drum 


238 

of you. I can’t explain it, but — oh, let me go! 
Let me go!” She rushed to the door sobbing 
hysterically. 

Bunny planted himself before her. 
“Yvonne, you shan’t go. It’s absurd. Why, 
you know you could never have anything to fear 
from me. I won’t let you go.” 

She caught hold of him, struggling fiercely, 
madly to get past. Taken by surprise he let go 
of her, and she dashed away down the stairs like 
a wild thing, opened the door and ran into the 
street. 

Bunny rushed after her, and reached the 
steps in time to see her cross Third Avenue, run- 
ning in the direction of the river. She had 
barely time to reach the opposite side of the 
street before he was upon her. She turned 
upon him like a maddened animal. 

“Yvonne, come back. You don’t know what 
you’re doing,” he cried, seizing her by the arm 
and attempting to force her back towards the 
house. The strong glare of a street lamp lit 
up her features. They were transformed into 
an expression of devilish malignity. A mur- 


The Distant Drum 239 

derous purpose blazed in her eyes, and her bear- 
ing was that of a snake about to strike. 

To Thorne’s amazement she screamed shrilly 
and struck him full in the face. Almost imme- 
diately a policeman came running up. 

“Now, then, what’s all this?” he said roughly, 
turning to Thorne. “I’ve been watching you 
two. Why don’t you leave this woman alone?” 

Before Bunny could protest, Yvonne was 
pouring out a disjointed torrent of accusations. 
“This man — my husband — ” she gasped. 
“Keep him away from me! I’m afraid of 
him! He’s trying to kill me!” 

Bunny turned to the officer. “It’s ridiculous, 
don’t take any notice of her. She’s hysterical, 
and I’m trying to get her home.” He again 
caught hold of Yvonne’s arm. She shrank 
away. 

“Don’t let him near me — he’ll murder me!” 

“Oh, this is all too absurd!” Bunny exclaimed 
angrily, shaking her. 

She shrieked again madly, and tore herself 
loose. “He’s threatened me with a razor!” 
she cried. 


240 The Distant Drum 

“Yvonne, what the devil — ” 

“I swear he did! It’s in his pocket!” 

Bunny shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s put 
an end to this,” he said shortly to the policeman. 
“You’d better satisfy yourself and search me be- 
fore I take her home.” 

The man hesitated, then ran his hands rapidly 
through Thorne’s pockets. 

In a few seconds he was holding out a razor 
before them. Bunny stared at it with astonish- 
ment and incredulity. Then he gave a start as 
recollection flashed across him. All the events 
of the evening surged through his mind in hid- 
eous sequence, and he understood for the first 
time the real meaning of his wife’s portrait. 

He straightened himself up and shrugged 
his shoulders again. 

“Delamotte was right, then, Yvonne,” he said 
quietly. 


PART III 


CHAPTER I 

HERE are few places less stimulating 



& than an empty court-room, and yet Mag- 
istrate O’Reilly’s at 8.30 on the morning 
after the fulfilment of Delamotte’s prophecy 
looked almost cheerful. Through the large 
open windows streamed the warm spring sun- 
shine, taking pity on the cold, shabby bareness 
of walls and benches. Through them, too, 
came the surge of the busy trolley-cars, and an 
occasional clatter of hoofs, as the police-vans 
drove up from the different “precincts” with 
their daily collection of dead-beats. At inter- 
vals some bare-headed policeman swung in 
briskly to busy himself with documents on the 
magistrate’s desk, and disappear again. 

Presently an over-pressed blue serge suit 
drifted in from a side passage. The face above, 
self-satisfied and insolent, with the peculiar in- 
solence of the fledgling New York “cop” 


242 The Distant Drum 

chewed gum assiduously. It directed itself 
casually towards a coloured clerk, writing at a 
desk. 

“Got a swell guy for youse, this morning, 
Joe,” it volunteered. 

The clerk looked up. “What’s th’ dope?” 
he asked indifferently. 

“Pinched him threatening his wife last night, 
T’oid Avenue.” 

“What yer git ’im fer dat? Seven days?” 

“Found a razor on him,” the face explained 
tersely. 

“Oh, concealed weapons, eh, boss? Seven 
years, den?” The clerk smiled appreciatively. 

“Yep, something like that. That English 
aviator guy I” The face ejected the chewing 
gum expressively. “She’s good an’ mad with 
him, I seen her this morning. Peach, she is. 
Swell dresser, too. You’ll have the papers in 
a minute.” The suit drifted out into the pas- 
sage again and the clerk went on with his writ- 
ing. 

As the Hands of the clock above the desk 
worked their way towards the hour, the usual 
crowd, curious as to what the police vans might 


The Distant Drum 243 

have disgorged, began to filter in, heralded by 
a few unconsidered trifles of humanity, who 
peered round the open door at the end of the 
room, to slink towards the back benches for 
their day’s entertainment. Clipping their time 
to the last second, three callous-eyed young men 
whizzed through the door towards the report- 
er’s bench and hit their target as the officials 
rose at the magistrate’s entrance. 

Among the first to arrive had been Bobby 
Reid. He had been summoned from his bed at 
the Blitz by an unenlightening but urgent note 
from Thorne addressed from the court. His 
interview with Bunny through the bars of his 
cell was brief and proceeded upon negative 
lines as far as Bunny was concerned. He did 
not wish any legal assistance, he did not know 
what the hell it was all about and he did not 
wish Yvonne to be interfered with by anybody. 
Anxious and bewildered, Bobby had returned 
to the court-room, to run into Delamotte. 

“You’ve heard then, Ralph,” he exclaimed. 
“What’s it all about? I’ve just seen Bunny, but 
I can’t get anything out of him.” 

Ralph looked utterly disgusted. “Yes, I’ve 


244 


THe Distant Drum 


heard. She telephoned me early this morning. 
Some long story about Bunny fighting her with 
a razor, and a policeman, and her efforts to get 
it hushed up. I rang off. She’s out to finish 
him, Bobby. We must get him counsel, 
quickly.” 

“It’s no good, Ralph. He won’t have one. 
Come and sit down. We may be able to do 
something when we hear the charge.” 

“I’ll telephone Betty to come along. She 
may be able to do something with Yvonne.” 

When he returned they seated themselves 
on the front bench facing the magistrate’s 
desk. 

Two or three minor cases were disposed of. 

Bobby nudged Delamotte. “There she is. 
Looks the part of the injured wife well enough, 
doesn’t she?” 

Yvonne certainly did. Dressed in unre- 
lieved but remarkably becoming black and 
heavily veiled, she moved slowly to a seat by the 
witness stand, accompanied by her maid, and 
sank down with an air of complete prostration. 

An old coloured man was at this moment elo- 
quently pleading his cause. “A’shuah you, 


The Distant Drum 


245 

sah, as de Lord am ma witness, not a drop ob 
drink hab passed ma lips foh — ” 

The magistrate waved his pen impatiently. 
“That’ll do. Three days. Call the next case.” 

Bunny’s name echoed down the passage to the 
cells. He strode into the court and faced the 
magistrate indifferently, without a glance at his 
wife. Both Delamotte and Bobby noticed also 
that Yvonne studiously avoided looking in his 
direction. 

The indictment was read out by the clerk. 
Reduced to plain language it amounted to the 
simple fact that Bernard U.lick Thorne of — 
East Fortieth Street, New York City, was 
charged with contravening the laws of the Peo- 
ple of the State of New York by carrying a 
concealed weapon, to wit, a razor, and with 
using threats towards his wife, Yvonne Enid. 
Bunny pleaded “not guilty” and was told that he 
might sit down on the front bench. He turned 
to do so, and seeing his friends, nodded coolly 
and sat down beside them, under the watchful 
eye of the gum-chewing policeman who had ar- 
rested him. 

“Why don’t you let me get you counsel, 


246 The Distant Drum 

Bunny? It’s a very serious charge,” Delamotte 
said earnestly. 

The policeman was called to the witness 
stand. 

“That’s all right, Ralph,” Bunny replied 
lightly enough, but his eyes were very notice- 
able. “It’s not worth bothering about. Inter- 
esting situation, though, isn’t it?” He crossed 
his legs and stared out of the window. 

Bobby here drew all eyes upon himself by 
rising suddenly. In the sombre pools of 
Yvonne’s eyes behind the black veil, two specks 
of light glowed for an instant as she turned her 
head sharply. 

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Bobby began dis- 
tinctly, squaring his shoulders and clicking his 
heels together. “I wish to ask your permission 
to represent Mr. Thorne in this case.” 

The magistrate showed signs of surprise. 

“I am aware that I have no legal standing,” 
went on Bobby quickly, “but, in view of the 
gravity of the charge, I hope you will grant my 
request.” 

“There is no necessity — ” Bunny began has- 
tily. 


The Distant Drum 247 

Bobby cut him short. “As to my position, 
I am a personal friend of Mr. Thorne and his 
people in England, and” — he tilted his fair 
head perceptibly higher — “I am an officer in 
His Majesty’s Brigade of Guards. As this is a 
case where he certainly requires a friend” — 
Bobby emphasised the word — “to watch his in- 
terests, I — hope — that is, I would consider it an 
honour to be allowed to do so.” 

The magistrate surveyed him with keen, 
clever eyes, eyes trained to sift the wheat of 
sincerity from the chaff of make-believe as an 
ordinary part of the day’s business. He con- 
sidered a minute, while Bobby’s face grew 
flushed with self-consciousness. 

“Very well, Mr.—?” 

“Reid,” prompted Bobby. 

“Very well, Mr. Reid. It’s irregular but 
I will permit you to do so in this instance.” 

Bobby thanked him and sat down. A re- 
porter leaned over eagerly with a whispered 
question, but got little satisfaction. 

The policeman started to give his evidence 
at a nod from the magistrate. He described 
briefly how his attention had been drawn to the 


The Distant Drum 


248 

prisoner about twelve o’clock the previous night, 
in Third Avenue near East Fortieth Street, by 
seeing him running across the street in pursuit 
of a woman. He saw him catch her up and 
shake her roughly by the arm. He was going 
towards them when he heard the woman scream 
several times. He ran up to them and asked 
the prisoner what he was doing. Prisoner 
seemed to be the worse for drink and made no 
reply. The woman seemed to be very afraid 
of him, said he was her husband and that he 
had threatened to kill her with a razor that was 
in his pocket. Upon searching him he found 
the razor. (The policeman here produced it 
and handed it to the magistrate.) It was an 
ordinary tone-handled one. Continuing his 
evidence, he said he had then taken the prisoner 
to the station and charged him with being in 
possession of a concealed weapon. The pris- 
oner’s wife had accompanied them to the sta- 
tion and repeated her story to the lieutenant in 
charge. She was in a very nervous state and had 
evidently been badly frightened. 

Bobby (rising) : “What made you think 
Mr. Thorne was the worse for drink?” 


The Distant Drum 249 

Policeman: “Well, he smelt slightly of 
brandy and he seemed unsteady.” 

Bobby: “I suppose one glass would make 
him smell of it, wouldn’t it? Never mind that, 
though. When did you arrest Mr. Thorne?” 

Policeman: “I don’t quite understand the 
question. I arrested him in Third Avenue after 
I found the razor.” 

Bobby: “Not till after? Then how did 
you come to search him before he was under 
arrest?” 

Policeman (hesitatingly) : “He asked me 
to” 

Bobby: “Oh, he asked you to, himself, eh? 
Did he make any remark when you found the 
razor?” 

Policeman: “He seemed rather surprised 
and made some remark that somebody was right. 
I didn’t get the name he mentioned. He said 
nothing else at all.” 

Bobby: “Now, tell me this. Did you hear 
this gentleman use any threats at all at any time 
towards his wife?” 

Policeman: “No, I can’t say I did. But his 
wife told me — ” 


250 


The Distant Drum 


Magistrate: “Never mind what his wife 
told you. Do I understand that no threats were 
made at all in your presence?” 

Policeman: “No, sir. I heard none.” 

Yvonne turned to the magistrate and started 
to speak. 

“Sit down, Mrs. Thorne,” he said perempto- 
rily. “Your turn will come in a minute. Any 
more questions, Mr. Reid? Very well, then, 
you can stand down,” to the policeman. 

The clerk called out “Mrs. Bernard Thorne.” 

The sparsely filled benches rustled expectantly 
as Yvonne went up the steps of the witness stand 
with an air of resigned dignity. Her pose re- 
minded Delamotte irresistibly of a treasured old 
print of Mary, Queen of Scots, mounting the 
scaffold. 

Thorne moved suddenly, leaning over to 
Bobby. “Look here, Bobby, I’m very obliged 
to you, but I don’t want you to question her at 
all. I’d rather manage this part of it myself.” 
He spoke quietly but Bobby noticed the ugly set 
of his jaw, and assented with a shrug. 

“ — and nothing but the truth, so help me, 
God.” Yvonne’s low mechanical tones died 


The Distant Drum 


251 

away as she raised her right hand with the 
book. 

“And she’ll want all His assistance for that,” 
Delamotte muttered with satirical profanity. 

“Now, Mrs. Thorne, please give me your 
account of what happened,” said the magistrate 
incisively. 

Yvonne began in a subdued parrot-like mono- 
tone, standing erect with hands holding the rails 
before her. Her features were indistinct be- 
hind her veil, and her expression could only be 
guessed at. 

“I am sorry to have to take this position with 
my husband, but I am forced to ask for pro- 
tection against him. For some time now, he 
has been threatening and abusing me till it has 
made me a nervous wreck. I’m sure I have 
done all I can to make him happy — ” 

The magistrate interrupted her sharply. 
“Yes, yes, Mrs. Thorne, but I want the facts of 
last night as briefly as possible, please.” 

The two gleams behind her veil showed again. 
“I was trying to give you them,” her voice broke 
out harshly. It softened again as she continued. 
“Last night I was dining with some friends — 


2 $2 The Distant Drum 

Mr. Thorne knew perfectly well who they 
were — ” she turned her head and stared delib- 
erately at Bunny as she went on with her evi- 
dence. He was still looking out of the window. 
“My husband had not been feeling very well 
and he did not accompany me. Feeling rather 
anxious about him, I telephoned to see if he was 
all right, and to say I was coming home im- 
mediately. I arrived at the house in a taxi. 
He rushed down the steps and shook me by the 
arm very excitedly, as soon as I got out, and 
asked where I had been.” 

Delamotte noticed Bunny throw a quick look 
at her for the first time that day, a look of utter 
astonishment. A second later he was again 
gazing out of the window. 

“I was frightened at his manner because I 
could see he had been drinking.” She turned 
her head to the magistrate again for a moment. 
“He never does drink very much. I’ve always 
been so glad of that,” she explained. Looking 
fixedly again at her husband she resumed. “I 
paid the taxi while he was abusing me. After 
it went away he swore at me violently. I wa9 
so frightened that I ran down the street. He 


The Distant Drum 


253 


ran after me and caught me in Third Avenue, 
and struck me on the arm. I screamed and the 
policeman came up, and I told him my husband 
was threatening me, and then he found the razor 
on him. I went — ” 

“Wait a minute, Mrs. Thorne,” the magis- 
trate interposed brusquely. “You told the po- 
liceman the razor was on your husband. How 
did you know that?” 

Yvonne turned her veiled face towards him 
and showed slight confusion as she saw her slip. 
“Oh, yes — why, of course, he pulled it out of 
his pocket outside the house, and threatened me 
with it. That was why I was so frightened. I 
said so just now.” 

The magistrate was watching her intently. 
“No, you didn’t say so.” 

“I must have forgotten it then.” Yvonne 
said calmly. 

“Oh, you forgot that he actually threat- 
ened your life with a razor! It’s rather an im- 
portant point, isn’t it? It’s extraordinary that 
you should have forgotten that.” 

Delamotte turned to Bobby. “That’ll let 
him out,” he whispered, “unless she’s got some- 


The Distant Drum 


254 

thing else. The Lord only knows what really 
did happen, but it’s plain enough O’Reilly’s up 
against her.” 

Again Yvonne looked straight towards her 
husband. “I suppose the taxi driver could be 
found who drove me home? He heard Mr. 
Thorne threaten me with the razor,” she said 
coldly. 

Again Thorne was surprised into looking 
round for a moment. 

Yvonne went on. “Then I went to the police 
station with them, and I was so terribly afraid 
of him that I had to make the charge. I think 
Mr. Thorne means well enough, but he seems 
to lose control of himself. He’s had a lot of 
business worries lately. And sometimes I think 
he’s hardly in his right mind.” Her voice be- 
came pathetic. “It’s been a terrible thing for 
me the last few months. He’s been doing a lot 
of flying, and I suppose an aviator’s wife is al- 
ways more or less anxious. I don’t wish to do 
him any harm if I can help it, but he’s always 
led rather a reckless life and I think it makes 
him hold other people’s cheaply. Anyhow 
things have got to such a state that I must ask 


The Distant Drum 255 

for protection.” She swayed and gripped the 
rail tighter. “Please, please keep him away 
from me,” she concluded faintly. 

“Any questions, Mr. Reid?” asked the magis- 
trate. 

“No, sir,” came quickly from Bunny. 

The magistrate surprised, turned to Yvonne. 
“You can stand down.” 

She went back to her seat beside the maid. 
As she raised her veil to dab her eyes with an 
absurd scrap of lace, her face showed pale and 
set with a faint bluish tinge about her tightly 
shut lips. 

“Veronal!” commented Delamotte under his 
breath. 

The assistant district attorney crossed the 
floor to the magistrate’s desk, carried on a short 
whispered conversation, and moved away again. 

“Do you wish to give evidence, Mr. 
Thorne?” the magistrate asked. 

Bunny hesitated. “Perhaps I might as well, 
sir,” he said casually. He stepped up to the 
stand and took the oath. Yvonne sat very still, 
watching. Delamotte turned hastily to Bobby. 

“Ask him what time she telephoned?” 


The Distant Drum 


256 

Bobby nodded. 

The magistrate was looking at Bunny inter- 
estedly. “What have you to say?” he asked. 

Bunny’s face was a mask of indifference. 
“Very little, sir. It’s simply a misunderstand- 
ing. I should be the last person to do her any 
harm. The idea’s ridiculous, of course.” He 
rapped out the words curtly. “I’ve nothing to 
complain of in my wife, she’s only been rather 
hysterical lately. As for the razor, I was shav- 
ing last night before my wife came home, and 
I happened to slip it into my pocket, as I went 
down to let her in. I may have been a little 
sharp with her, but as I said she has been in a 
nervous state lately, and when the policeman 
came up I was merely having a stupid argument 
with her — about whether we should go out to 
supper. A ridiculous place to have an argu- 
ment, I admit.” He laughed shortly. “That’s 
all, sir.” Bunny relapsed into impassive si- 
lence. The magistrate was scrawling on his 
writing pad, abstractedly. 

“You have nothing more to say, then?” He 
asked. 

“No, sir.” 


The Distant Drum 257 

Bobby stood up as Bunny turned to leave the 
stand. “What time did your wife telephone 
you, Bunny?” he asked. 

“Oh, let me see. About a quarter to twelve, 
I suppose. She came home immediately after- 
wards, any way.” He smiled at Bobby and 
stepped quickly out of the stand. 

“Silly ass! Bunny,” Delamotte said as he sat 
down. “One would think you were crazy to 
see the inside of the Tombs. If I didn’t think 
you were pretty safe, now, I’d get up and say 
what I know.” 

Bunny smiled queerly. 

The magistrate looked dubious. “Have you 
any other witnesses, Mrs. Thorne?” 

“Yes, my maid.” 

“What can she say about it,” he asked sharply. 
“Was she there?” 

“No, but she’s been in the house when Mr. 
Thorne’s been so queer lately, when he’s threat- 
ened me,” answered Yvonne. 

This latest strategical move of Yvonne ap- 
parently took her faithful body-guard by sur- 
prise. The only point the maid seemed to be 
quite firm about was her name and address. A 


The Distant Drum 


258 

few direct questions soon reduced her rambling 
evidence to the plain statement that she had 
never heard Mr. Thorne use any threats in the 
house against her mistress. She had noticed, 
however, that Mr. Thorne had seemed a bit 
queer lately, since his accident with his air- 
ship. 

“Aeroplane, you mean,” corrected Bobby. 

“P’raps I do, p’raps I don’t,” said she with 
irritation. 

“What do you mean by queer?” Bobby ven- 
tured again. “You’re English yourself, aren’t 
you?” 

“Yes, and I know something about Guards- 
men,” she snapped. 

Bobby sat down hastily. The magistrate 
smiled involuntarily and dismissed her. (The 
same fate no doubt awaited her from Yvonne — 
without the smile.) 

He conferred again with the assistant dis- 
trict attorney, then he sat up in his chair with 
decision. “I have come to the conclusion that 
this is a case that should never have been brought 
before me. I think that considering the posi- 
tion that you both occupy, Mrs. Thorne, you 


The Distant Drum 259 

should be able to find a better way than this of 
settling your difficulties with your husband, 
whatever they may be.” He paused and looked 
at her severely. 

Delamotte saw the danger-signals gleam 
again in the darkness of the veil. He caught 
Bunny’s sleeve and whispered anxiously. 

“Come straight to my apartment with me 
when you get outside. Don’t go near her.” 

“Rats!” replied Bunny. 

The magistrate continued. “I have heard no 
evidence from any source to corroborate your 
charge and I am bound to say that your story 
alone is too unsatisfactory to justify me in com- 
mitting your husband to the general sessions. 
I am prepared to believe Mr. Thorne’s expla- 
nation as to how the razor came to be in his 
pocket, and therefore the charge of carrying 
concealed weapons cannot be sustained, as a 
razor can only come under that heading if it 
is carried on the person for an unlawful pur- 
pose, and this has not been proved. I shall, 
therefore — ” 

“I have something further to say.” Yvonne’s 
voice cut in distinctly, staying one of the callous- 


260 The Distant Drum 

eyed young men as he reached the door stuffing 
a note-book into his pocket. 

The magistrate broke the silence. “What is 
it?” He frowned. 

“Something about the razor that will alter 
your opinion,” said Yvonne. “As you take the 
attitude that my evidence is not worthy of cre- 
dence, I must ask you to listen.” She waited in- 
solently. 

“Well, go on, go on,” the magistrate said, with 
obvious irritation. “You can stay where you 
are.” 

“My husband never uses that razor for shav- 
ing. Hasn’t done so for the last three months.” 
Yvonne had thrown off all disguise. The in- 
flection of her voice was deadly and menacing. 
“He always uses a safety razor. That I can 
swear to, and so can my maid.” 

Delamotte laughed aloud and sprang up with 
blazing eyes. “This is too much, sir,” he began 
indignantly. 

Thorne was on his feet. He grabbed Dela- 
motte’s arm and forced him back to his seat. 
“Damn it, man, will you let me look after my 
own business?” 


The Distant Drum 261 

“Silence, there! Silence!” A police ser- 
geant took a step towards them. 

“Gee! And I nearly missed this stuff!” The 
callous-eyed youth who had returned from the 
door gasped to his neighbour. 

Yvonne went on fiercely. “That thing you 
have there has been put away somewhere else 
for a long time. The safety razor that he uses 
every day is on the shelf in the bathroom with 
the rest of his shaving things. If you don’t 
believe me, send down to the house now and 
prove it!” She paused with heaving breast, 
and then made a final vicious thrust. “You’ll 
find a loaded revolver on the same shelf. That’s 
the sort of life I’ve been living!” 

“A loaded revolver!” The magistrate took 
her up quickly. “Then can you suggest a rea- 
son why your husband did not use that in pref- 
erence to the razor? Especially as according 
to you it was so much more handy.” 

The veil hid the effect of this rebuff, but 
Bunny could picture Yvonne’s lower lip suffer- 
ing for her tongue’s indiscretion. He won- 
dered dully why he still felt sorry for her — 
mightily sorry. 


262 (The Distant Drum 

“No, I — I can’t.” Her hesitation was only 
momentary. “I’m not here to guess riddles,” 
she retorted. 

The magistrate turned to Bunny. “Have you 
anything to say to this? I warn you, I consider 
Mrs. Thorne’s statement about the safety razor 
very important.” 

Bunny stood up. “Nothing except that she’s 
making a mistake about the revolver being 
loaded. As a matter of fact I have no car- 
tridges for it. As for the safety razor, her re- 
marks are quite correct. I simply happen to 
have been using the other the last two days as its 
blades are all rusty. My wife probably doesn’t 
know of this.” 

“You can sit down,” the magistrate said. 
“Now, Mrs. Thorne, I want to point out the 
situation as clearly as possible to you. Your 
husband is charged with a very serious offence, 
and whether I commit him or not for trial rests 
entirely upon your evidence. As I have pre- 
viously said the fact of a razor being carried 
on the person does not make it a concealed 
weapon, but — and this is what I want to im- 
press upon you — if the person carrying the 


The Distant Drum 263 

razor is proved to have used threats of violence, 
such as you allege your husband to have used, 
it automatically comes under this act. And I 
wish you to understand there is a very serious 
penalty for it indeed. Now, I was on the point 
of dismissing the case when you made your last 
statement. That statement was bound to influ- 
ence me considerably. It has, at any rate, raised 
a fresh element of doubt in the case. Now, I 
am going to put it to you. If you still persist 
in saying that your husband threatened you, I 
am afraid I have no option but to commit him 
for trial. If, on the other hand, you are able 
to say to me that you may be mistaken, that per- 
haps you were over excited and exaggerated 
the incident, I shall be glad to listen to you.” 

There was a dead silence. The only person 
in the court not looking at Yvonne was her hus- 
band. He was lounging back with his hands 
in his pockets. A reporter scribbled with fever- 
ish concentration. Somewhere by the back 
benches, a foot scraped over the floor harshly. 

Then Yvonne spoke. “ I am sorry the matter 
should be so serious, but I regret I am unable to 
correct my statements in any way.” 


The Distant Drum 


264 

An angry murmur spread through the court. 
Bobby jumped up as Yvonne gracefully re- 
sumed her seat, her chin tilted disdainfully. 

“I wish to avail myself further of the priv- 
ilege you have extended to me before you an- 
nounce your decision,” he said hastily. “I hope 
you will make allowance for the fact that I am 
speaking without any legal knowledge, but on 
Mr. Thorne’s behalf I wish to lay stress on one 
or two points that no doubt you — er — you al- 
ready appreciate. There seems to me to be no 
proof at all that Bunny — Mr. Thorne — had used 
threats at any time, beyond the bare word of a 
very hysterical woman. I have had the pleas- 
ure — I have known her for a year, and I can 
assure you that she is subject to occasional at- 
tacks of hysteria and it would be very unfair 
to Mr. Thorne to place much weight upon her 
words to-day. None of us who know Mr. 
Thorne would imagine for a moment that he 
would do anything to upset his wife in any way. 
He is much too devoted to her. He has his own 
reasons for not wishing to defend himself more 
fully, and I hope you will put the right con- 
struction on his reticence.” 


The Distant Drum 265 

As Bobby sat down, the magistrate nodded to- 
wards him. “I should, strictly speaking, com- 
mit the prisoner to the general sessions, but I 
am not quite satisfied as to Mrs. Thorne’s fit- 
ness to appreciate the situation to-day. I am 
of your opinion, Mr. Reid, that she is in an hys- 
terical state, and I shall take the responsibility 
of adjourning the case until to-morrow.” He 
turned to Yvonne. “If you are not able to re- 
consider your evidence by then, Mrs. Thorne, 
I shall have no option but to commit your hus- 
band.” His eyes reverted to the papers on the 
desk before him. “I shall put the prisoner 
under one thousand dollars bail,” he concluded 
curtly. 

Yvonne rose immediately and left the court. 


CHAPTER II 


TJ UNNY refused to go out on bail. His 
only answer to Bobby’s heated expostula- 
tions was unsatisfactory but firm. “I’m sick 
of the whole business, it’s too hopelessly sordid. 
I don’t want to see anybody till the whole 
thing’s settled. It’s no good arguing, Bobby. 
I’ll see you to-morrow.” He turned on his heel, 
and followed the policeman to the cells as the 
court emptied. 

Betty was waiting for them at the door, 
raging. She had received Delamotte’s tele- 
phone message in time to see the case open, and 
had been sitting at the back of the court. Her 
opinion of Yvonne was immediately made 
clear. “And she actually had the audacity to 
bow and say ‘how d’you do’ as she went out I 
Ugh!” 

She got into a taxi with Bobby and Dela- 
motte. On the way to her apartment, Bobby was 
inclined to vent some of his wrath on the head 

266 


The Distant Drum 267 

of the taciturn Delamotte for not backing him 
up better in his efforts to get Bunny to come 
out. 

Delamotte shook his head testily. “My dear 
fellow, he’s much safer where he is till to-mor- 
row. If he came out to-day, she’d only kill him 
— or he’d kill her!” 

“Oh, do you think Bunny would do that?” 
said Betty, her little mouth agape. 

“I suppose so. Why shouldn’t he?” Dela- 
motte said in a matter of fact voice. “Besides, 
why do you suppose Bunny was wandering 
about with a razor in Third Avenue last night? 
To persuade her to go out to supper with it?” 

“Oh, well, anybody could see he was doing 
all he could to shield her,” replied Bobby. 

“Shield her, yes, that’s right enough,” Dela 
motte snorted. “There’s a lot behind it we 
don’t know anything about. But I can tell you 
one thing that wasn’t brought out, Bunny wasn’t 
telling the truth about that telephone message. 
I know it was nearer ten than twelve when he 
got it, because I was there!” 

“You were there?” Betty repeated amazedly, 
“then you know all about it!” 


268 The Distant Drum 

“I know nothing, because I left just after — 
nothing except that Yvonne was out with Dav- 
enport. He’s back again, Betty. You can 
guess what that means!” 

Betty ruffled her plumage and Bobby looked 
mystified. 

“A lot can happen in two hours when there’s 
a woman in the case — like Yvonne!” Ralph fin- 
ished significantly. 

“But wouldn’t that have made a difference 
if you’d said that in court?” Betty asked. 

“It might have if Bunny had borne it out, but 
he wouldn’t hear of any interference. I was 
going to eventually, but you saw the way he 
took it.” 

“Well, I think it was fine of him! Wouldn’t 
you do the same thing yourself?” 

“It depends on the woman,” he said quietly. 

“Well,” Bobby observed, “I suppose it 
amounts to this, if Yvonne doesn’t change her 
mind by to-morrow — and that’s highly improba- 
ble — poor old Bunny’s finished.” 

Betty left them outside her apartment, with 
the understanding that they should all set their 
wits to work at once to see if anything could be 


The Distant Drum 269 

done for the obstinate prisoner, and talk it over 
again at dinner with her that evening. 

Betty conscientiously started to fulfil her part 
of this loyal conspiracy as she pulled out her 
hat pins. But she was half way through her 
solitary lunch before she had any idea on the 
subject worthy of the name. Then she laid 
down her fork suddenly. Why, Davenport, of 
course! He must have the key to the situa- 
tion. Ralph had hinted as much. She won- 
dered if he was doing anything in that direc- 
tion, and wondering immediately decided to get 
in first. Her task was rendered all the more dif- 
ficult by the fact that Davenport was one of 
Yvonne’s friends whom she had studiously re- 
fused to meet. Although she knew a good deal 
about him, she had no idea where he was to be 
found. Undeterred by this obvious difficulty, 
she determined to try. 

Betty left her cutlet to look after itself and 
consulted the telephone book, turning to the 
“D’s.” There was no Wilbur K. Davenport. 
Her finger travelled aimlessly down the col- 
umn: Davis, Dean, Deitz — she read the names 
idly while her brain cast about for a clue — Del- 


270 


The Distant Drum 


monico — why, he might be lunching there! 
H’m! That was hardly a place he would fre- 
quent. More likely some place in the White 
Light district. Ah! That’s an idea — they 
would be sure to know him there! 

Inspired by this accidental line of thought, as 
fast as she could get the calls through she rang 
up Kirkhill of Kirkhill’s, Schweitzer of the 
Cafe des Beaux Yeux, Cartin of Cartin’s, and 
other demi-gods of Broadway, but without suc- 
cess. All were deferential at the mention of 
her name, but ignorant of Davenport’s where- 
abouts. At last Betty got Jacques of the Mar- 
guerite on the wire and was rewarded for her 
pertinacity. 

“Ah, is that you, M’sieu Jacques? This is 
Mrs. Fawle — M’sieu Jacques I want you to help 
me — thank you, that’s very charming of you. 
Do you know Mr. Wilbur Davenport? — You 
do — then could you tell me where I could find 
him? — oh, he is there now! Thank you so 
much — no, no, thanks. Good-bye!” 

Betty, too elated by her success to look very 
far ahead — she had little experience as a 
schemer— had only one thought, a taxi. But 


The Distant Drum 


271 

by the time she arrived at the Marguerite the 
magnitude of the task she had set herself rather 
appalled her. Her smart tailor-made covered 
a very fluttering heart as she sent a bell-boy to 
find Jacques while she waited in the hall. 

“Oh, M’sieu Jacques, is Mr. Davenport still 
here?” 

Jacques’s beady eyes twinkled with pleasant 
appreciation as his bushy black beard hid an- 
other button of his waistcoat. “Yes, madame, 
I believe so.” 

“Please give him a message from me — your- 
self, will you? You know who I am. Will you 
tell him that a lady wishes to speak to him out- 
side? Don’t mention my name.” 

Jacques disappeared and Davenport, looking 
very surprised, came out a minute later, holding 
an evening paper in his hand. Betty noticed 
that he was very smartly dressed. Taking her 
courage in both hands she addressed him hur- 
riedly. 

“Mr. Davenport, I am Mrs. Fawle.” 

He bowed. “Yes, I know you by sight, Mrs. 
Fawle, although I haven’t had the pleasure — ” 
his voice trailed off inquiringly. 


2J2 


The Distant Drum 


Betty hesitated, then she decided that her only 
chance — and a slight one at that — of getting a 
hearing, would be to come as an emissary of 
Yvonne. After that, well the affair would be 
on the knees of the gods. “ I am, as you know, 
a friend of Mrs. Thorne’s,” she began. 

Davenport glanced at the paper in his hand 
and crumpled it into a ball viciously. “If 
you’ve come from Yvonne, I’ve nothing to say. 
Mrs. Thorne — Pah!” 

Betty looked at him wide-eyed at the unex- 
pected effect she had produced. Davenport 
was mad with Yvonne — over something. 
Surely, she thought with anguished impatience, 
this must be her chance if she could only find 
the key. 

Davenport was eyeing her defiantly, waiting. 

Then joyously, she understood. He was mad 
over the case! That was the meaning of the 
crumpled paper. This was her chance! Betty 
seized it with an avidity worthy of a graduate 
in Yvonne’s own school of intrigue. 

“I have come about Mrs. Thorne,” she said 
hurriedly, “but I must confess I’ve not come 
entirely in her interests. There was a case this 


The Distant Drum 


273 


morning in which she was concerned — I don’t 
know if you have heard of it — and, to be per- 
fectly frank with you, I understood that you 
might have been able to throw some light on 
it, as you were seen dining with her last night. 
It was an impertinence to come to you, as I can 
see you would take her side in the matter, and 
I must apologise. I have made you angry and 
perhaps I had better not pursue it any further.” 
Betty stopped and looked at him diffidently. 

Davenport apparently swallowed the bait 
whole. “It is for me to apologise, Mrs. Fawle. 
My annoyance was from quite a different cause, 
and I would be very pleased to discuss the matter 
with you, but” — he looked around him and 
smiled — “we can’t get much further, in the 
hall, can we? Will you allow me to ask Jacques 
if he can find us a place a little more private?” 

“Certainly, Mr. Davenport.” 

He hurried off. The forthcoming interview 
with this well-known mauvais sujet, in a private 
room at the Marguerite, Betty awaited with the 
mixed feelings of a small boy stealing his first 
cigarette. 

Davenport returned shortly, and conducted 


274 


The Distant Drum 


her to Jacques’s private office, which he had 
borrowed for the occasion. “Now, Mrs. Fawle,” 
he began, “I must tell you I’ve just read the 
account of that trial. I’ve got to ask you rather 
an extraordinary question before we go any 
further.” He paused and smoothed out the 
paper that was still in his hand. Betty noticed 
that it was shaking. “Are you sufficiently in 
Yvonne’s confidence to know if she is really 
married to this man?” 

Betty was surprised. “Oh, yes, Mr. Daven- 
port, there’s no question of that,” she replied 
decidedly. 

“You are certain?” he persisted awkwardly. 

“Quite! I have seen the marriage certificate. 
In any case I should never have doubted it.” 

“Ah!” was all he said. 

“Why, don’t you believe it, Mr. Davenport?” 
asked Betty. 

“Yes, of course,” he clipped out. “Well, 
what do you want me to do?” 

Betty was taken aback. This was quite dif- 
ferent from her ideas of the delicate fencing to be 
expected from a properly trained adventurer. 
“Well, you were dining with Mrs. Thorne last 


The Distant Drum 


275 

night before her husband was arrested,” she fal- 
tered, “and I — ” 

“Yes, and you think I can tell you what hap- 
pened perhaps?” Davenport prompted. 

“I thought you might know something about 
it,” said Betty, with an ingenuous air. 

Davenport almost smiled in spite of his an- 
ger. “And you want me to tell you?” 

“Oh, yes, please!” she beamed at him and de- 
cided forthwith to start in opposition to Pink- 
erton. 

“Well, I’m not concerned with your reasons 
for wanting to know, but if it’s going to give 
Yvonne a taste of her own medicine, I’ll tell 
you.” 

Betty thought of her own words to Delamotte 
on the day of Bunny’s accident and her triumph 
was complete. 

Before Davenport spoke again he stared va- 
cantly at a column of the newspaper for some 
moments. “Mrs. Fawle, you’re a woman with 
a very good name in New York,” he began 
bluntly. “I never could understand your asso- 
ciation with Yvonne. But still,” he continued 
quickly, “that’s nothing to do with the ques- 


276 The Distant Drum 

tion. I’ll tell you what happened last night 
fully, but I’m going to ask you to listen to my 
reasons for giving her away.” As he looked up 
there was a slow smouldering rage in his eyes. 
Betty nodded silently. “You will have guessed 
from my question that I didn’t know Yvonne 
was married. That’s not the only surprise I’ve 
had to-day. First of all I must explain, in case 
you don’t know it,” he looked at her directly, 
“that I’m supposed to be a crook. Nearly a 
year ago some business of mine leaked out, and 
I had to leave the country. I found out to-day, 
that Yvonne had opened a letter of mine and 
sold me — sold me because she wanted this other 
man. 

“However, she had sent me off with a 
letter saying that she would wait, and I came 
back a little while ago at the risk of being ar- 
rested, to take her away. I found her with this 
other man.” His nervous fingers were tearing 
pieces from the newspaper on his knees. “Well, 
I thought at the time I was a hunted man, 
and I had to lie very low, but I managed to 
see Yvonne. She assured me she was not mar- 
ried and told me to wait while she got rid of 


The Distant Drum 


277 

the man, and then she would come away with 
me. I thought it was only a question of weeks 
before I was arrested, and I meant to spend 
them with her. I didn’t tell her so, though; 
but that’s what I came back for — a short life 
and a merry one with the woman I was crazy 
about!” He laughed grimly. 

“Yesterday she promised that she would run 
away with me. To-morrow she will be at the 
Pennsylvania station at two o’clock with her bag- 
gage.” He sprang up from his chair and began 
to stride up and down the room fiercely. “Well, 
I shan’t! I shall be leaving to-day from the 
Grand Central at four o’clock for the West — 
for the West! To-day I’m no longer a hunted 
man. The evidence against me had all been 
in the hands of one man, and he told me to-day 
that he had never used it. Well, Mrs. Fawle,” 
he stopped and faced her. “That and this last 
damned trick of hers has altered everything as 
far as I am concerned. It was one thing to 
take a chance with her when I expected to have 
only a few weeks liberty, but things are different 
now. She’s not worth it; and this business to- 
day has scared me off completely. It’s shown 


The Distant Drum 


278 

me she’s too dangerous altogether — even for me! 
I’ve got a life to live now, and I’m damned if 
she’s going to play hell with it any more. I 
can sympathise with that fellow to-day, and I’ll 
tell you the truth. If you can do anything with 
it to get him off, good luck to you.” 

Betty drove home half an hour later with all 
the facts of the previous evening safely pigeon- 
holed in her memory, with a feeling of surprise 
that the Concert of Europe had kept its har- 
mony so long without the assistance of her dip- 
lomatic powers. When she reached her apart- 
ment, she rushed to the telephone with her news, 
but both Delamotte and Bobby were out. She 
curbed her impatience as best she could, and 
summoning her car took a drive in the park. 

Seven o’clock brought the other sleuth-hounds, 
and also, alas, disillusionment. 

The moment they were seated at dinner Betty 
turned to Ralph. “Any news, Ralph?” she 
asked casually. 

“Nothing of any importance. Yvonne is ab- 
solutely relentless, of course. But what’s 
yours? I suppose that’s what you wanted me 
to say.” 


The Distant Drum 


279 

“How did you know I had any news?” They 
both laughed. 

“Betty, your face is as full of head-lines as 
the front page of the Manhattan Magnet used 
to be!” 

“Oh-h! Well, let me see,” Betty considered. 
“I had lunch in a private room at the Mar- 
guerite with a very interesting man I’d never 
met before.” She waited for the effect. 

“What!” They both shouted with suspicious 
simultaneity. 

“Well, not exactly lunch,” she went on airily. 
“Do you ever take girls to private rooms, 
Bobby?” 

Bobby was equal to the occasion. “Only 
when they’re not good-looking enough for the 
restaurant — and that wouldn’t apply to you, of 
course,” he added hastily. 

“That,” remarked Ralph, “is his way of turn- 
ing a compliment. When you have fully di- 
gested it, do you mind telling us the name of the 
handsome stranger?” 

“Davenport!” she replied. 

The effect she produced was genuine enough 
this time. 


280 


The Distant Drum 


“Yes, Davenport, and he told me everything 
that happened last night. I managed to get it 
all out of him after only two or three questions,” 
she confided modestly, and proceeded to give a 
painstaking repetition of Davenport’s story. 

“Betty, that’s a scoop I” cried Delamotte. 
“And it’s darned clever of you. We’ve got 
Yvonne beat this time. We’d better look 
Davenport up after dinner, Bobby, to make sure 
he turns up.” 

Betty looked wise. “Oh, you won’t be able 
to do that. He’s gone West this afternoon on 
the four o’clock.” 

Bobby abstractedly took a long draught from 
his finger-bowl. 

“Gone West!” Ralph shrieked. “Betty, you 
haven’t let him go?” 

Betty’s heart sank with sudden misgiving, but 
she did her best to keep up a bold front. “We 
don’t want him now we know all about it, do 
we?” she inquired. 

Delamotte recovered with an effort. “Well, 
you see, Betty, it’s necessary for him to speak as 
a witness,” he explained kindly, seeing Betty’s 
distress, “otherwise what have we gained? A 


The Distant Drum 281 

second-hand story from a man who can’t be pro- 
duced.” 

“But what about me, Ralph? I can swear to 
it, because he told me.” 

“That’s not admissible as evidence, Betty. 
Say, it’s a pity, though. There’s no doubt we’ve 
got the truth. It’s just the sort of thing she 
would do.” Ralph drummed his fingers on the 
tablecloth. 

“Look here, Ralph,” Bobby suggested 
briskly, “there’s only one way we can make use 
of this as far as I can see, and that is for some- 
body to get hold of Yvonne. If she’s faced with 
the facts perhaps she can be bluffed into drop- 
ping the case.” 

Ralph conceded this. “But who’s going to 
do it? After what we said to her this after- 
noon, she’d never let us within a mile of her.” 

Betty, who had been sitting very quiet, with 
puckered forehead, brightened up. “Ralph, I 
might be able to do that. She’d probably be 
tickled to death to give me some long account 
of how she’s been ill-used. I’ll get her on the 
’phone.” 

“The ’phone!” Ralph laughed derisively. 


282 


The Distant Drum 


“You’ll be lucky! She’s had a few hundred 
calls this afternoon already! Everybody has 
been at her — everybody who has had a grievance 
against her for the last seven years, and that’s a 
few. Still, there’s no harm in trying.” 

Betty went to the telephone. “Central? 
Give me one-five-four-nine-eight Murray Hill, 
please.” 

At the first shrill call of the bell, Yvonne’s 
wide-open eyes glittered savagely in the half- 
light of the shaded room. At the second, her 
outstretched body shuddered and lay tense; her 
hand shot out towards the telephone, but drew 
back slowly. At the third, she sprang up from 
the bed and clawed the receiver. 

“Yes, who is it now?” she said in a low, pur- 
ring voice. “Oh, you , Betty!” Her straining 
breast quieted as she listened. Then in the 
same soft voice she spoke again. “I can’t to- 
night, Betty, I’m busy, and oh! so tired. — Yes, 
I’d love to come — Nine o’clock? — I’m sure 
you’ll be able to understand. Good night, dear.” 

Yvonne drew away and crouched on the edge 
of the bed, watching the receiver as though it 


The Distant Drum 283 

were a living thing. Her quick, tortured 
breath quivered through the stillness, as she 
waited with naked hate in her eyes. Then again 
the loud challenge from the outer world. 

“Yes, speaking, who is it? The Morn- 
ing Star? No, I’ve nothing to add 

What other people say doesn’t affect me — to 
hell with you all, to hell with you !” She caught 
sight of the firm face of her husband looking 
straight at her from its frame on the bureau. 
“Ah!” Snatching up the loose wire in both 
hands she tore it from the wall and hurled the 
receiver from her. It struck the photograph 
frame and the glass fell tinkling to the ground. 

A timid knock at the door swung Yvonne 
round. 

“Well?” 

“Mrs. Van Heyden has called and wishes to 
see you particularly.” 

“Leave me alone — leave me alone!” 

The terrified maid crept down the stairs. 

With maddened eyes, Yvonne darted to her 
dressing table and rummaged at the back of a 
drawer filled with frothing laces. She drew 
out a little white cardboard box with a plain 


The Distant Drum 


284 

white label, and clutched it tightly, shrinking 
back at the sight of her face in the glass. 

“My God! No/ I mustn’t; sleep or no 
sleep! No mistakes to-morrow!” she said 
aloud with a sudden, fierce laugh. Holding 
the shade aside, she threw the little box far out 
into the soft twilight. Then she turned and 
walked deliberately to her husband’s photo- 
graph. “Damn you!” she flung at it with 
curling lips. “Damn you! You think you can 
break me! Do it then — do it now — in your 
cell! I put you there, you poor thing, and I’ll 
keep you there! I’m a free woman! Free to 
do as I like!” 

The firm face scrutinised her gravely. 

“Free! do you hear me?” she shrieked, strug- 
gling in her agony against the strange relentless 
tide that was bearing her away from her easy 
accustomed waters. 

“Free!” She dashed her clenched white fist 
against the jagged glass of the frame and sank 
quietly to the floor. 


CHAPTER III 


WONDER if we’re inaugurating a new 
A craze, Bobby,” Delamotte said with an 
attempt at cheerfulness. “Breakfast parties be- 
fore the police-court! I wonder what Betty’s 
will be like.” 

Bobby looked despondently at a kidney placed 
before him by Delamotte’s valet. “Interesting, 
but utterly futile, I should imagine,” he replied. 
“I wonder what poor old Bunny’s doing with 
himself.” 

“I’m afraid he’s smoked his last cigarette for 
a few years,” Ralph replied. “Imagine him 
taking all that on for a vampire like she is! 
Well— coffee?” 

Bobby snorted. “I suppose somebody will 
waste a cartridge on her eventually!” 

“She’s completely finished herself over here, 
even amongst her own pals — and some of them 
are none too particular. There’s nothing left 
for her but to turn into an out-and-out adven- 

285 


286 


The Distant Drum 


turess. You’ll run up against her some day in 
Rome or Shanghai or Johannesburg looking 
perfectly charming and telling the same old 
story to some poor devil — and almost believing 
it herself!” 

“I used to think she was the sweetest woman 
I’d ever met, Ralph,” Bobby sighed. “So did 
Bunny, I suppose, or he wouldn’t have married 
her. It’s a pity.” 

“He still does. That’s the trouble,” Ralph 
commented grimly. “You won’t get any more 
out of him this morning. What are you going 
to do?” 

“I can only put the facts to her, I suppose. 
They’ll both deny them.” Bobby shrugged his 
elegant shoulders. “It won’t be any use.” 

They relapsed into gloomy silence. Ralph 
took up a newspaper and gazed at an alleged 
photograph of Bunny heading a long and im- 
aginative account of his life — obviously inspired 
by Yvonne. He threw it aside disgustedly, and 
ruminated on Bunny’s extraordinary obstinacy 
— because it must be sheer obstinacy, he thought. 
Bunny couldn’t possibly have any ideals about 
her now. He must know now that what he had 


The Distant Drum 287 

been pleased to think was a heart was no more 
than a mere organ for pumping blood, that his 
beautiful dream-lady laughing joyously among 
the roses of a Long Island summer garden had 
long ago materialised into a vicious desperate 
thing, maddened by the lights of the City. 

His valet came into the room. “Mrs. Thorne 
wishes to see you, sir.” 

Delamotte smiled. “Very well, show her 
in.” He turned to Bobby as the man disap- 
peared. “I wonder what her latest move is, 
Bobby,” he said resignedly. “Heaven knows 
what she’s come for, but it’ll be amusing to 
watch how she goes about it.” He looked at 
the clock. “H’m! Eight o’clock! She hasn’t 
been to Betty yet.” 

Yvonne entered the room, but even Delamotte 
was shocked at the agony of her eyes as she 
lifted her veil. He found her a chair as Bobby 
bowed coldly. 

She was dressed in black again — a different 
but equally fascinating frock, and a daring black 
hat with a single large white ostrich feather. 

“Ralph, I’ve changed my mind,” she said. 

Delamotte was guarded. “Oh, really, 


288 


The Distant Drum 


Yvonne,” he said with cutting politeness. 
^Well, I’m very glad to hear you say so, natu- 
rally. We’re just of! to the court now.” 

“Of course, you don’t believe me,” she said 
weakly. 

Ralph shrugged his shoulders and waited. 

Yvonne turned towards Bobby,, gripping the 
arm of the chair with her gloved hand. “Can’t 
you believe me, Bobby?” she pleaded, with a 
catch in her voice. 

She was doing it very well, Delamotte thought. 

For a moment Bobby’s chivalry fought with 
his memory of that broken man, his friend, be- 
hind the bars. Then he answered her stiffly. 
“I’m afraid I’ve no reason to, Mrs. Thorne.” 

The room was very still. Yvonne buried her 
face in her hands and shuddered. A stifled sob, 
and then she slowly drew herself up and stood 
erect. “I’m not surprised,” she said quietly. 
“I’m just as sick of myself as you are of me. 
I’ve realised what I’m like when it’s too late and 
I’ve lost you all — and Bunny. I’m going to 
tell the truth and get him off. Any questions 
you ask me in court, Mr. Reid, I’ll answer. 
Now I’m going to Betty’s. Good-bye.” She 


The Distant Drum 


289 

looked at each of them in turn as they bowed. 
Delamotte went to the door and held it open. 
She walked out slowly, keeping her chin up 
with a brave effort. He followed her to let her 
out of the apartment. 

When he returned Bobby was fidgeting with 
the newspaper. They looked at each other awk- 
wardly. 

Then Delamotte crashed his fist on the table. 
“No, I’m damned if I think it’s all right. I’ll 
believe it when I Hear it in court!” 

Ten minutes later, Betty welcomed Yvonne 
quite pleasantly at the door of her apartment. 
“You’re an early bird, Yvonne. But come and 
look at these hats.” 

Yvonne was very subdued. Presently she 
told Betty of her intention with dull, abstracted 
manner. 

Betty was, of course, incredulous. “Oh, 
Yvonne,” she said, leaning her elbows on the 
table and looking across at her. “How can 
one — ” she broke off. 

“Believe me?” Yvonne finished for her in a 
faint voice. “Oh, well, it doesn’t much matter, 


290 The Distant Drum 

does it? Besides, I’ve told Ralph and Bobby 
this morning, so I couldn’t get out of it now if 
I wanted to.” 

“Oh, you have!” Betty looked eager. “Did 
Ralph tell you what we found out yesterday 
afternoon?” She watched Yvonne narrowly. 

“Found out? No, what?” 

Betty immediately decided that Yvonne had 
never been near Ralph at all. “Oh, we found 
out what happened on Thursday night,” she 
said, returning to her former air of casual un- 
belief. She flatly refused to satisfy Yvonne’s 
rather excited enquiries as to what she knew, 
and how she knew it, and relapsed into preoc- 
cupation. 

“Well, Betty,” Yvonne said with a little 
plaintive smile. “I don’t seem to be much of a 
success to-day. If you don’t wish to tell me, 
well — that’s all there is to it. However, you’ll 
soon have a chance to hear me speak the truth 
for once in my life, at any rate.” She laughed 
nervously. The conversation became casual 
and disjointed until Betty suddenly walked to 
the telephone. She picked up the receiver, and 
holding it to her ear, turned her face to Yvonne. 


The Distant Drum 


291 


“I’m going to ask Ralph if you did see him this 
morning, Yvonne,” she said deliberately. 

As she turned back to give the number, Yvonne 
was stung into resentment of this crowning 
insult. “Don’t trouble!” she sneered. “You 
won’t find him. He’s out!” 

“Ah!” She turned back to the instrument. 
“Never mind, Central.” She snapped back the 
receiver decisively, all her suspicions confirmed. 

Yvonne shrugged her shoulders, and going to 
the piano, began to play quietly until breakfast 
was announced. 

The court-house that morning presented quite 
a different aspect from its routine-bound dulness 
of the previous day. Even the wiliest of the 
tattered habitues of the back benches found dif- 
ficulty in gaining their day’s shelter. At the 
point where the imaginations of the callous- 
eyed young men had failed, the insidious infec- 
tion of rumour had stepped in, and by ten o’clock 
a chain of automobiles was winding slowly up to 
the entrance. 

When the magistrate took his seat, he faced a 
fashionable matinee audience waiting eagerly 


292 The Distant Drum 

for developments of the plot. Here and there 
a mere man dodged irritably a threatening hat- 
brim. It was significant that the more exclusive 
circles of the demi-monde were well repre- 
sented. Delamotte and Bunny’s self-consti- 
tuted counsel occupied the front bench again. 
The prisoner showed a complete lack of interest 
in the preliminary proceedings, although his set 
face looked perhaps ten years older. 

Punctually at half-past ten the case opened 
and shortly after Yvonne’s name was called. 

There was no arrogance of bearing about the 
woman who stepped into the stand and gave a 
shrinking glance, through her thick veil, at the 
insolent eyes of her resplendent audience — eyes 
that spoke ostracism to her as plainly as ever the 
down-turned thumbs of Rome spoke death to 
the defeated gladiator. 

The magistrate tapped his pen on the desk. 
“I adjourned the case yesterday,” he said 
sharply, “to enable you to consider the position 
fully, as I concluded you were not in a fit state 
to appreciate your evidence. What have you to 
say?” 

She spoke in a low, hurried voice. “As you 


The Distant Drum 


293 


have given me the opportunity, I wish to with- 
draw everything I said yesterday against my 
husband.” She paused. 

The murmur of surprise that surged through 
the room and died away at an involuntary ex- 
clamation from Bunny was eloquent testimony 
to the popular conception of Yvonne’s character. 

The low voice grew lower and more hurried. 
“I am going to make a full explanation. My 
husband has always treated me as if I were the 
best woman in the world, and I think I must 
be one of the worst. My life has been one long 
succession of tricks — ” 

The assistant district attorney looked quickly 
at the magistrate. To his surprise the latter 
made no move of interference. 

“ — and I’ve only just realised the awfulness 
of it all. If I can make some reparation to-day 
perhaps it will save me from — from something 
worse. I tricked my last husband into a luna- 
tic—” 

Thorne sprang to his feet. “Yvonne, I in- 
sist!” he shouted and turned to the magistrate. 
“I must ask you, sir, to put an end to this. I — > 
I plead guilty — I’ll take any course—” 


294 


The Distant Drum 


The magistrate held up his hand for silence. 
“Mrs. Thorne,” he said gently, “this court can- 
not enter into questions of that nature.” 

Thorne sat down dazedly, as another murmur 
arose from the benches. 

The magistrate continued. “Please let me 
have the plain facts about this case.” 

“I am sorry. With regard to my statements 
yesterday, I had been taking drugs, and I hardly 
knew what I was saying. Mr. Thorne never 
used any threats to me, either on Thursday night 
or at any other time. What actually happened 
is this: I had been out to dinner with a man 
whom — whom my husband did not approve of, 
and I was mad enough to take him back to the 
house with me. He was very — drunk, and tried 
to have a row with my husband. I think fear 
must have driven me out of my senses then, and 
I rushed upstairs and took that razor — I hardly 
know why, I think I was going to cut my 
throat. My husband came up and took it from 
me and put it in his pocket away from me. The 
other man ran out of the house. My husband 
was very nice to me. I suddenly took it into 
my head to play this fiendish trick on him. I 


The Distant Drum 


295 


ran quickly out of the house into Third Avenue, 
and you know what happened. I did it because 
— because I thought I wanted my husband out 
of the way — because I’d promised to run away 
with this man Davenport — because he was a 
man I’d lived with — because I was mad — ” 

The magistrate stopped her quickly. 

Thorne lurched forward in his seat and fell 
fainting to the floor. 


CHAPTER IV 


B UNNY was quickly brought back to a state 
of dazed consciousness, and the magistrate 
dismissed the case without comment. But Dela- 
motte soon discovered that his collapse was a 
good deal more serious than a mere fainting fit. 
His one idea, however, as he left the court on 
Bobby’s arm was to get back to Fortieth Street. 

“Don’t be a fool, Bobby,” he said feebly. “I 
must go to Yvonne after that. Why did you let 
her leave the court?” 

“Oh, she ran out the moment it was over, like 
a hare,” replied Delamotte. “You’ll find her 
at home all right. But come along first with 
Bobby and me and have a brandy and soda.” 
Bunny eventually consented to this, but on the 
distinct understanding that he would only stay 
for a few minutes, and they got in a taxi. 

“Well, Ralph,” he said quietly, “how’s that 
for pluck, eh?” 

“Very fine, Bunny, very fine!” Delamotte’s 

296 


The Distant Drum 297 

blue eyes looked troubled. “Psychology badly 
at fault this time, eh? Er — what are your plans 
going to be, Bunny ?” he continued rather awk- 
wardly. 

“Oh, I know we’ve got to leave here,” was 
the bitter reply. “Might as well get down to 
Nice, or somewhere round there, I suppose. 
God! My head’s splitting!” He dropped his 
head into his hands. 

Bobby looked concerned, and exchanged a 
glance with Delamotte. When they reached 
the Gardenia, Bunny gulped down a brandy and 
soda thirstily, while Ralph took the opportu- 
nity of escaping to the telephone in his surgery. 
He came back looking rather puzzled. 

“I’ve just telephoned to the house, Bunny, to 
ask Yvonne to come along here to lunch. She’s 
not home yet from the court, but I left word with 
her maid for her to ring up directly she comes 
in. Betty’s coming round in a few minutes, so 
we’ll have a lively little luncheon party,” he 
concluded cheerfully. 

At this point, Bunny, who was lounging in an 
armchair, showed unmistakable signs of another 
collapse. Bobby went up to him. 


298 


The Distant Drum 


“I say, Bunny, old boy, why don’t you go and 
lie down for a little while till Yvonne comes? 
A sleep would buck you up.” Without further 
argument, he took him firmly by the arm and 
led him through the folding doors into the ad- 
joining room. 

“Here you are, Bunny, take this.” Ralph 
held a phial to his lips after settling him com- 
fortably on a couch. They chatted with him 
for half an hour till he began to doze off, and 
returned to the other room as Betty came in: a 
glad symphony of flushed cheeks under a Leg- 
horn hat and little red shoes twinkling from be- 
neath a white tailor-made costume. 

“Oh, you glorious thing!” cried Delamotte. 
“My poor roses will wither away with shame!” 

Betty smiled and brought another victim to 
her feet. 

“Consider the lilies of the field — ” began 
Bobby, not to be outdone. 

“Lilies! And roses! Solomon would feel a 
shabby old man beside me then,” said Betty 
merrily. 

“Who’s Solomon?” queried Bobby. 

They laughed delightedly. “When you start 


The Distant Drum 


299 


on a quotation you should be sure where it 
finishes,” observed Delamotte, leaving Bobby 
in a state of vague alarm. “But say, Betty,” he 
went on, “poor Bunny’s in rather a bad way. 
I’m afraid he’s in for a nervous breakdown. 
Can’t w r onder at it after what he’s been through 
since his accident.” 

Betty’s face clouded. “Oh ? poor thing! I 
am sorry. Is it serious?” 

“He only wants a good rest — a sea voyage. 
He’s talking of going to the Riviera.” 

“With Yvonne, of course?” Betty said quickly. 

“Oh, yes. I dare say it will do her good, 
too,” he replied, with feeling. “Poor Yvonne! 
She made a wonderful effort this morning, 
didn’t she?” 

“Yes, splendid. By the way, she told me at 
breakfast that she had seen you this morning.” 

“Oh, yes, she was here.” 

Betty started and her colour left her. 

“Why, what’s the matter, Betty?” 

“Oh, I — I didn’t believe her,” she replied, 
confusedly. “I was rather rude about it. But 
why didn’t you tell her what we knew?” 

Delamotte spread out his hands deprecatingly. 


300 


The Distant Drum 


“I’m afraid we were all pretty beastly to her,” 
Bobby said. “We didn’t take her seriously 
enough to discuss the thing at all. I’m sorry 
now.” 

“Good Lord, man, what could she expect?” 
Delamotte burst out vexatiously. “It’s the old 
story of the boy and the wolf. But she ought 
to be here now. Run into my surgery and tele- 
phone again, Bobby. I left word for her to 
come along to lunch,” he explained as Bobby 
trotted off. 

“Lunch?” Betty said impulsively. “Oh, she 
won’t be able to come to lunch — ” She caught 
Delamotte’s surprised glance and stopped short 
in confusion. 

“Why, have you seen her?” asked Delamotte 
quickly. 

Betty hesitated. Then, “Oh — er — no, I 
haven’t seen her. But I’m sure she wouldn’t be 
in a fit state to come to lunch, would she, Ralph?” 
Betty rose from her chair and buried her face 
in the bowl of roses on the table. “I’m dread- 
fully sorry for her, but I’m sure everything will 
be all right now.” She stood up with dimmed 
eyes. “Let’s all be as nice as we can to her be- 


Th« Distant Drum 


301 

fore they go, and send her away to a new life: 
a life as fresh and sweet as — as these roses.” 
Taking a glorious Caroline Testout from the 
bowl she tucked it into her coat and walked to 
the window. Delamotte looked after her rev- 
erently. 

“As your own, Betty,” he said. 

Bobby came back into the room. “Her maid 
says Yvonne’s not back yet. Somebody’s just rung 
for you, Mrs. Fawle. She’s on the wire now.” 

Betty’s eyes asked a question. 

“No, it’s not Yvonne,” he said quickly. “I 
don’t know who it is.” Betty left the room 
hastily. 

She stood in the doorway a minute later with 
bloodless lips. 

“Why, what’s wrong, Betty?” Delamotte 
moved anxiously towards her. 

“Ralph,” she said with a little helpless gasp, 
“I must go out for half an hour, but — ” 

“But — you’re in trouble?” 

“No — it’s nothing.” The rose on her bosom 
trembled. “I’ll try and be back to lunch, or — 
or telephone, or something — you’ll be here, 
won’t you?” Without waiting for a reply, she 


302 The Distant Drum 

ran down the passage. Standing amazed, they 
heard the front door slam. 

Bunny’s voice came from the next room, 
faintly. “Is that Yvonne?” 

Bobby went in to him. 

Later, Bobby and Ralph sat down moodily at 
opposite sides of a table laid for five, but it was 
plainly a formality. After a few half-hearted 
efforts, Delamotte consigned the lobster to a 
warmer place than his shady dining room, and 
took up an evening “extra” that his valet had 
placed beside him. The first thing to catch his 
eye on the front page was an account of that 
morning’s proceedings at the police-court. 

“Look at this, Bobby,” he sighed. “The yel- 
low press yelping at their heels already.” 

Bobby got up and glanced at the head-line. 

WIFE GETS HUSBAND OFF WITH 
LURID CONFESSION 

NOTORIOUS “MRS. SEBASTIN” TELLS LIFE STORY 
IN COURT 

YESTERDAY SHE SAID, “OH, HOW I HATE 
YOU!” 

to-day: “oh, how i love you!” 


The Distant Drum 30 3 

Bobby read aloud the opening lines of the 
report: 

“AN EXTRAORDINARY DEVELOPMENT in the 
sensational razor case occurred this morning at Magistrate 
O’Reilly’s Court. The beautiful Mrs. Thorne, who before 
her latest venture into the realms of matrimony — to which 
she seems to take as easily as a duck takes to water — ” 

Delamotte dropped the paper, and leant his 
chin in his hands. 

“It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it?” Bobby said 
reflectively, staring at the tablecloth. “But sure 
enough, it’s the best thing that could have hap- 
pened to him.” 

Delamotte shook his head. “No, no, He won’t 
give her up. Why, the man wouldn’t have an 
object in life without her. Besides,” he jerked 
his thumb towards the room where Bunny was' 
lying, “her work is just starting now. He’s a 
very sick man, Bobby.” He paused, thinking 
deeply. “And, don’t you see, he’ll have to take 
her away from here — from New York, from 
the old lures, and that’ll give her her chance. 
I think she’ll be glad of it from what happened 
to-day. That’s been the trouble all along.” 
He looked up at Bobby standing by his side. 


304 


The Distant Drum 


“He ought never to have let her set foot again 
on Manhattan. She was a different woman 
altogether on Long Island, after Bunny found 
her — as happy as a child; not a rotten idea in 
her head. I tell you, Bobby, as long as she’s in 
New York she’ll never be different.” 

Bobby, with hands thrust deep in his pockets, 
began to pace the room energetically. “How 
is it she’s different to-day then? She’s still in 
New York. No, I think you’re wrong, Ralph. 
I didn’t mean that he was going to give her up 
either. But it’s not a question of Long Island, 
or New York or — or anywhere else. She would 
be all right anywhere now.” 

Ralph looked at him quizzically. “Why, 
what’s your idea about it, Bobby?” 

“Well, I’ve got my own opinion about it. I 
don’t know — perhaps I’m wrong. But Bunny’s 
a very obstinate devil, you know. He generally 
gets his own way.” 

Delamotte pondered over this remark until he 
was aroused by the telephone bell ringing in 
the surgery. He jumped up with relief and 
hastened away to answer the call. 


The Distant Drum 


305 

Then “Bobby!” came a sharp call from the 
hall. He went out quickly to find Delamotte 
putting on his hat. 

“I’m going round to Betty’s. She’s tele- 
phoned me. There’s something wrong.” He 
was plainly labouring under strong excitement. 
“Stop here with Bunny. Don’t tell him where 
I’ve gone.” He flung open the front door and 
rushed to the elevator. 

Betty’s eyes were wide with horror and fear 
— fear that shook her limbs and twitched the 
white fingers digging into her cheek. “Thank 
God you’re here, Ralph! Please, please come 
and look at Yvonne.” 

“Yvonne?” 

He followed Betty quickly to a room on the 
left of the hall, her bedroom, and halted in dis- 
may on the threshold. 

Yvonne lay on the bed — very still. 

He strode forward, and drawing back the 
pink silk negligee half covering her form, 
plunged his hand beneath the fine lace about her 
bosom, and waited. 


The Distant Drum 


306 

By the dressing table cowered Betty’s maid, 
sobbing quietly. 

Suddenly he looked up and flung an abrupt 
question at Betty. “When did she die?” 

Betty’s eyes pleaded with the dumb anguish 
of a stricken animal. “Oh, God! Are you 
sure she is dead?” she moaned. 

Delamotte turned back to the body without a 
word. For a minute — an eternity, he bent over 
it. Betty drew in one long fierce breath and 
watched him. The maid sobbed helplessly. 
Through the window came the first faint sounds 
of tramping feet and the rolling of drums, as a 
military parade swung along the Avenue, some- 
where away by Forty Second Street. 

Then Delamotte started up aghast, and stood 
thinking, thinking, while the veins stood out 
like blue cords on his forehead. Suddenly and 
peremptorily he motioned the maid from the 
room. As the door shut behind her, he drew 
the pink robe over Yvonne’s cold breast and 
turned to Betty. “What’s the meaning of all 
this, Betty?” he said coldly. “What have you 
done?” 

“Done? Why?” she gasped. 


The Distant Drum 307 

Delamotte put a shaking hand to his forehead. 
“Good God, woman, the case didn’t finish till 
eleven this morning!” 

Betty forced herself to look at him. “Well, 
what of it?” She flung the question desperately. 

“She’s been dead since ten o’clock,” he said 
shortly. 

Betty rushed up to him and clutched him 
frantically by the shoulders. “Oh, Ralph, it 
was a trick! I didn’t mean it — I didn’t mean 
to kill her — I only gave her twenty grains — at 
breakfast — and she’s so used to it — ” 

“Veronal?” 

She nodded dumbly. 

The strains of the music were swelling, and 
the marching of men. 

Then great raking sobs broke out, tearing at 
the very heart of her. “I didn’t believe her this 
morning, and she really meant it after all — I’m 
sure of it now — somehow! Ralph, she was 
lying there dead while I — I was playing a 
wretched trick on her — and I’ve killed her — ” 

Delamotte lifted her hands from his shoul- 
ders and held them fast. “Dear — it’s not your 
fault,” he said, “she died of heart failure.” He 


The Distant Drum 


308 

paused and looked straight into Betty’s haggard 
eyes. “She died of heart failure,” he repeated, 
“and as to the time, it happened at — any time 
I like to say.” 

Betty freed her hands gently, and went to the 
bed. Taking the rose from her coat she placed 
it on the dead bosom. 

“I’m sorry, Yvonne,” she whispered. 

Delamotte closed the door softly as he led her 
out, a stricken woman. 

A glad ray of afternoon sunshine danced about 
the room — over the daring hat with the big 
white feather lying amidst the gleaming ivory 
of the dressing table — over the soft folds of the 
black silk gown flung across the back of an arm- 
chair — and over the calm, sweet beauty of the 
face on the pillow, kissing away the death pal- 
lor, to leave a sleeping woman. 

The steady tramping of feet came nearer as 
they swung to the sound of a curt “Tap! Tap!” 

Then a crashing roll of drums broke out 
triumphantly, and swelled louder — louder — 
louder. . . . 

And the only answer was the lazy flapping of 
the half-drawn shades in the cool breeze. 


L’ENVOI 


S IX months later a letter, with the original 
address buried under many superscriptions, 
and bearing the postmarks of many cities, was 
handed to Wilbur Davenport at the Ocean View 
Hotel, Durban. 

He read it, as he lounged in a deck chair in a' 
shaded corner of the verandah overlooking the 
Bay — read it twice, three times before he looked 
up. His fingers mechanically refolded it, as he 
gazed down over the three miles of green 
wooded slopes of the Berea to where a toy red- 
funnelled boat cut a tiny white line in the 
mighty stretch of sapphire sea — the huge 
Kenilworth Castle homeward bound. 

The letter was from Yvonne. 


“Wilbur: 


“East Fortieth Street, 
7, A. M. 


“I can’t come with you. I’ve changed my 
mind. If you get this before two o’clock, as 

309 


3io 


The Distant Drum 


I hope you will, you may be able to understand 
why. If not, well, to your mind, I shall have 
played you another trick. Really, though, I 
have been played one myself, and you will 
laugh, of course, when I tell you that my hus- 
band has done it. He’s tricked me into think- 
ing that he is about the best man in the world. 
And, imagine! I never really suspected how 
cleverly he was doing it till this morning. I 
really don’t pretend to know how it has come 
about — if I did I shouldn’t tell you — but I’ve 
changed somehow. Last night I went to bed 
a crazy woman, thirsting for his blood. This 
morning, I rather think I’d die for him if he 
asked me to. Now you may laugh! I’m going 
now to the court to fetch him; if he will have 
me after what I’ve done to him, I shall never 
want anyone else. If he won’t I shall still never 
want anyone else, and that’s all there is to it. 
You must never annoy me any more, do you see? 
— or I might — scratch! I’m a terribly selfish 
woman, as you know, and I want to be left in 
peace with him. I want to get away with him 
somewhere, if it isn’t too late. I want — oh, so 
many things that you wouldn’t understand — 
roses and sunshine, and blue skies, and — the 
laughter of little children. Good luck and 
good-bye. YVONNE.” 
























































































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